


Resisting the Wind

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Clint Needs a Hug, Community: avengerkink, Kink Meme, Minor Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Other, Phil hates Magic, Teen!Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint vanishes from the battle and wakes up a few blocks away from the action, and now he's sixteen. He doesn't know how the hell he ended up in NYC, but he knows he has to lay low. Clint's pretty good at laying low, even as a kid, and it takes a little while for Phil and the rest of the team to figure out what happened to him, and a while longer to actually find him. They also have to convince him that they can be trusted. It's magic, of course, but the kicker is that the spell comes with a terrible choice attached, and Clint is not in the best shape to be making choices about his own life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Readiness is All

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this prompt at the kinkmeme (but I didn't get to very many of the bonuses, so, well. Someone else should go fill the bonuses...): During a mission (Avengers or SHIELD), something happens that results in Clint being deaged to a teenager. Instead of sticking around to see what's going on, he books it. He's at the age where he was left behind by the circus after his fallout with the Swordsman and his brother. The team has to hunt down Hawkeye and they're not sure how old he is or what he's thinking at that point in time, then they have to deal with getting him back to his normal age while trying to keep him from taking off again.
> 
> beta read by lexxorz the awesome.

 

Clint swam into consciousness. He was lying on a small patch of green grass and above him he saw blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. It was quiet, and as he looked off to his side he saw an enormous bed of wildly colored flowers. He had a sudden, faint memory of his mother, a petite woman with pale skin and trembling hands, telling him that she thought heaven must be beautiful and quiet, since everything here on earth seemed so ugly and loud. 

Maybe he was dead.

Maybe the doctors had thought he was ready to be out of the hospital but he wasn’t, or maybe those thugs who caught him stealing their cigarettes earlier today hit him harder than he thought and now he had died of internal bleeding. Whatever had happened, it was pretty here in this moment, so Clint stayed, breathing deeply. When he recognized the scent of smog, though, he sat up, looking around carefully because heaven probably wouldn’t smell like downtown Richmond, Indiana, where he’d been standing a second ago.

He felt the shift of too-large clothing across his skin and he looked down. There was a vest made out of something weird; it was thick and felt like a cage around his torso. The gaps between his shoulders and the vest were big and awkward, and the material rubbed against his neck uncomfortably. His pants were just _weird_. No self-respecting sixteen year-old would be caught in leather pants with buckles stretched across at odd intervals, and these didn’t fit either, bunching up around his waist and billowing a bit at the thighs. Everything was too big.

He looked around again, seeing an empty playground and basketball court, and realized he was in a city park; there was an alleyway across the street. There was a lot of noise approaching, an odd screeching sound overlapping a helicopter and – was that a roar? Maybe someone let some lions loose in the city, he thought with a grin as he scrambled to his feet. He was a little dizzy, but he swallowed and took a deep breath, figuring being out in the open and dressed like this wasn’t probably where he wanted to be. That was when he saw a gorgeous compound bow on the grass nearby and realized there was a complicated quiver next to it.

He leaned over and picked the bow up. It was a little heavy for him, but god, he’d never held such a bow. He’d seen pictures of compounds, but had only used a recurve in the circus. He ran his finger across the trigger, sensing strength and power and wondering why the hell it was here. He shook his head, blinking hard against confusion and a thread of fear. He looked at the bow again and then looked toward the sounds of chaos. He had to figure out what was going on before that chaos reached him, so he hitched his pants up with his other hand, picked up the quiver and threw it across his back, and took off at a jog down the alley across the street.

He figured three things out quickly.

One, he needed different clothes. Two, he wasn’t in Indiana anymore, and three, he was going to have to ditch the bow. Ditching the bow was directly related to the first two. He needed clothes and he didn’t have any money, which meant he’d have to steal them. Stealing meant subtlety and he wasn’t going to be able to be subtle with a compound bow and a quiver. He was also clearly in New York City, based on the bus he saw and the subway stop looming at the end of the alley – what the _hell_ \- and that meant that he’d have to be careful; a bow was just going to draw attention he didn’t need.

So he grudgingly hid it behind a dumpster. Hiding it was probably futile, but a part of him hoped he’d be able to figure things out and come back for it since it was so god damned beautiful. With a sigh he ducked out of the alley and thought that heading away from the chaos he could still hear was probably the way to go, so he clung to the storefronts and headed down the street, biting his lip and looking around furtively.

He passed a store that sold souvenirs and t-shirts, and he ducked inside. He realized the shopkeepers were watching a television in the corner, enraptured by something about giant robots. He used the distraction and grabbed a sweatshirt off the rack, along with a baseball hat, and ducked back out of the store unnoticed. He passed an alley, shucked the strange vest, and pulled on a sweatshirt, navy with the words ‘New York Rocks!’ on it. The hat was a Yankees hat, and after he pulled that on he continued on down the street.

His pants were still a problem, but he figured he’d put some distance between him and the chaos before he addressed that. He didn’t know the city at all, so he just kept the chaos at his back and walked for almost an hour, trying not to think too hard about what was going on. He needed space.

He came to another city park and he stopped, found a deserted corner of the park, and sat down with his back against the fence surrounding a basketball court.  He let out a deep breath and wasn’t surprised when he started to tremble a little.

He had been pushing the little wave of panic that kept threatening down into his chest for the last hour. It rose, now, up his throat and he bit his lip again, trying to keep it in, and he tasted blood after a moment. He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to hold the shaking in. “What would Barney say about all of this,” flew through his head and he shoved it out as quickly as he could. Barney wouldn’t help him three weeks ago when he and Duquesne stood over Clint’s bleeding body, and Barney certainly couldn’t help him now.

Looking around the park, Clint wondered what the hell was going on. He’d been leaning against a wall in an alley in Richmond, Indiana an hour ago. He had gotten beat up by two guys who caught him trying to lift their cigarettes and was trying to catch his breath when the world tipped, landing him in New York fucking City.

He’d never been to New York City. Chicago was the biggest place he’d ever been, and even then it was only once with Barney and a couple friends from the circus troupe. They’d been performing outside the city and had all piled into a car on their day off and wandered around, not really doing anything other than eating pizza and people watching. He didn’t like it much, preferring the open fields where they’d set up each week, the little towns where people were nice and would often give the circus kids a free slice of pie and glass of lemonade if they wandered into the local diner. Now he looked up from where he was curled up and saw the city closing in around him, he wished he were anywhere but here.

Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself to wonder, just for a minute, what Barney _would_ do in this situation. Barney, who had fucking left him for dead, was good at thinking on his feet, had taught Clint a few things – like how to lift a wallet – and was always the one Clint looked to for answers, _before_. He was still trying to get used to the idea of _after_ , and now…this.

So he stood, figuring he had to deal with his food and shelter situation first. As he looked around the park, he saw a thrift store across the street. Ten minutes later, after using his ‘soulful eyes’ (according to the fortune teller in Carson’s circus) to explain that he didn’t have any money but just needed a pair of jeans to get him through for a bit, he thanked the kind old lady behind the counter and threw the weird pants with the buckles in a nearby trash can.

That’s when he spotted the red and gold robot flying through the sky in widening circles.

He stared for a moment – robot flying through the sky – and then started running again. He wasn’t sure why he felt like he needed to run, but something weird was happening to him and a flying robot was definitely weird, too. He didn’t like it.

He jogged a few blocks and finally came to an alley that didn’t look too dingy. It had a dumpster he could hide behind, so he headed for it. He almost tripped when he spotted a concert poster advertising a show coming up on October 12th, 2013. That was impossible.  Frustrated, he tucked himself behind the dumpster, shoving his fists against his eyes...

Giant robots were impossible.

Flying red and gold robots were impossible.

Fighting in Richmond and then waking in New York was impossible.

2013 was impossible.

Understanding one fucking thing about his stupid fucking life was impossible on a _good_ day, he figured, so what the hell, how different was this, really?

Clint stayed hidden until it got dark, and then he decided to find a subway station or bus station. _Those are really good places to pick pockets, Clint. Everyone’s in a hurry, you know?_ Clint shook his head to clear it, and made his way back out to the street. He passed a middle aged guy sitting on a doorstep and asked where the nearest bus station was.

About ten blocks over, he found it. A crowded, dirty bus station that was teeming with people. _Thanks for the advice, big brother_ , he thought grimly, and after he pulled his hat a little lower on his face and took a deep breath, he headed in. Light hands and speed was what made it work, and he’d been practicing. That’s how he’d gotten from Iowa to Indiana in the first place. He was going to head south, but shit. New York in 2013 happened. So now, he found a group of young guys who looked like they were heading out on a trip, laughing, carrying only backpacks filled to the seams with water bottles hanging off the clips.

Clint tucked one hand in his jeans pocket, slouched a little, and bumped into one of the guys – he had blond hair like Clint and was probably twenty or so – just a little older than Clint – perfect. He slipped his fingers in lithely and pulled the wallet out, reaching out with his other hand to grab the guy’s backpack as he offered an apology, “Sorry, man, sorry,” and wandered away, heading for the ticket counter to make his path seem legit. He got in line and pulled the wallet out and looked down with a grin. Jackpot. One hundred dollars in cash and a driver’s license for a twenty year old blonde kid named Devon Smith.

Clint could make that work for him.

He didn’t want to stick around when that kid figured out he’d gotten robbed, though, so he ducked back out of line and headed for the bathroom, veering off at the last minute to leave through a back entrance to the station. He found his way to a nearby diner and had a cup of coffee and a hamburger while he stared numbly at a newspaper he’d picked up off a table. It really did seem to be 2013, and when he looked around the diner in awe, he realized people were all using little handheld devices, a few people had things stuck in their ears, and the cash register at the end of the bar looked really weird. He looked up and realized the TV was flat and really, really big, too.

God, he just wanted to get out of this unfamiliar place and sleep for a while. Maybe he was dreaming. He stopped his sandwich halfway to his mouth as he thought about that one. A really fucking vivid nightmare? That just might be it. He set his sandwich down and considered it. How could he tell? This felt real. He was tired, bone-tired, and confused, but it didn’t feel like a dream. He remembered everything over the last six or seven hours, and dreams usually jumped around. And weren’t quite as clear. Or sensory – fuck. He couldn’t count on it being a dream.

He went back outside and a few people were standing around smoking. He approached an older woman in a sweater and scarf. “Could I bum one of those?” he asked. She gave him a once over and shrugged, handing him a cigarette and offering him a light. “Thanks,” he said, and she winked and turned away.

He inhaled on the cigarette and waited for the small rush from the nicotine, closing his eyes for a moment when it hit. He inhaled again, and as he watched the smoke leave his mouth he thought that maybe staying in New York wasn’t so bad. He had an ID and he was a good liar; maybe he could find some work to do. After he slept. God, he hadn’t felt this drained since the first time he had to do two shows in one day. He needed a place to crash.

He walked over to a brochure stand outside the station and found a map of the city and a list of hostels. He found his way to a nearby hostel, stopping for his own pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the way, gave them the fifteen bucks for the night, and after washing his face in the bathroom and trying not to talk to anyone, he collapsed on the top bunk and rested. He never slept well in unfamiliar places, but he had been quietly freaking out all afternoon, and he had possibly been magicked to New York City in 2013, so he dozed on and off, waking when someone came in the room and dozing once they were asleep.

It was better than nothing.

* * *

 

“Hawkeye, report,” Phil said sternly as he watched Stark take out another giant robot with a well-placed repulsor blast. There was no answer. That was the third time Phil or Steve had tried to raise Clint on the comms, and nothing. He turned to Sitwell, who was sitting two chairs down in the remote observation room in SHIELD headquarters, where Phil was coordinating with his team. “Jasper,” he said, and nodded to a nearby monitor, “Go back through the footage to these coordinates and look for Hawkeye. He’s gone off-comms.” Phil handed him a post-it with some information.

He looked back to the battle and kept up his calls to the team, directing Stark and Thor in the air, mostly, while the Captain took care of the ground assault. He wanted to switch with Sitwell, but this was his job. Worrying about Clint wouldn’t help.

A few minutes later, Sitwell found something. “Fuck, that’s weird,” he said suddenly, still staring at the screen.

“What?” Phil replied, adding “Stark, Sixth Avenue, go.” He turned to Jasper. “What’s weird?”

Sitwell leaned back in his chair. “Well, he’s on this roof, here, see?” he said, pointing at his screen. Then he pushed a button. “Then if you watch, he just disappears.”

Phil watched, and sure enough, Clint was standing on the roof one second and was gone the next. Phil checked his own monitors and then followed a hunch, checking Clint’s tracker that was implanted just under his skin at his stomach. Phil drew a sharp breath when he saw that the signal was just gone.

“What do you mean the tracker’s gone?” Tony demanded an hour later as they finally got rid of the robots completely. They were in the conference room of headquarters for debriefing, and Tony stood and walked over to the computer in the front of the room and started typing. After a moment, as Natasha stood and crossed her arms, her gaze darkening, Tony sighed.

“He’s right. It’s offline.”

“What do we do?” Natasha asked.

“It’s got to be magic,” Bruce said quietly from across the table, and Phil’s stomach turned a little because magic? He could not control that and _hated_ dealing with it.

Everyone looked at Thor, who looked startled. “It does appear to be what you might call magic, yes. But I do not know the source. There’s no other disturbance in the picture.”

They sat and watched the video feed over and over until Phil was sure he was going to see Clint disappearing in his nightmares the next time he got a chance to sleep. After an hour or so, he sent Stark out to do a sweep of the area just on the dumb off-chance that his sensors might pick something up. Phil sat staring at footage until he decided to send out three five-man teams of agents in three quadrants around where Clint vanished, and he took the fourth, along with Natasha, Steve, and Thor.

An hour later, Natasha found Clint’s bow. It was stashed behind a dumpster, along with the quiver. “He didn’t drop it,” she said carefully, looking around for other signs of Clint.

Phil nodded, a spark of dread lighting in his chest. “Someone stashed it. Hid it. Why?”

Thor looked around the alley and narrowed his eyes. “One hides something if they want to return for it.”

Phil looked down at his watch. “It’s been three hours since he disappeared.” He wanted to say Clint couldn’t get too far, but this was Clint they were talking about. He could be on a plane to California for all they knew. He had bolt holes with – “We need to check his bolt holes,” Phil said, looking at Natasha. “I know of two in the city, what about you?”

She nodded. “He has three. I’ll go.”

Just then Phil’s radio buzzed. “Sir,” one of the agents in another quadrant said, “We found his vest. It was in a dumpster on 23rd.”

“Affirmative,” Phil answered. “Keep looking.” He hooked his radio back to his belt and sucked in a deep breath. “Go find his bolt holes, Natasha. We still don’t know enough otherwise.”

“If it’s him throwing this stuff out,” Steve said, “He’s trying to blend in better.”

“He’s definitely compromised,” Phil muttered. Shucking his equipment meant something was very, very wrong, and Phil took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose against a coming headache. Natasha left, and Phil and the others kept looking. Soon, another team called in saying they found Clint’s uniform pants in another dumpster.

Phil pulled out his phone and pulled up a map of the area on a hunch. He pinned each spot they’d found something and let out a sigh, pulling up the keypad and dialing Hill’s direct line. She answered and he said, “I want any store with a camera along the path I’m sending you to hand over their security footage if they have it,” he said. “If he’s shedding his stuff, he’s doing it in a pretty linear path.”

And that bothered Phil.

If it was Clint who was getting rid of his gear, he wasn’t being very careful about it, which was unlike him. If it was Clint who was getting rid of his gear that meant he’d disappeared off a building roof and reappeared somewhere else, compromised. Compromised could mean so many things in this new world, Phil thought to himself, and he tried not to panic.

They kept looking, but two hours later Natasha reported that none of Clint’s bolt holes had been raided, which meant that he wasn’t using any of his fake IDs he kept stashed, and that meant that he didn’t have an ID on him right now.

Finally, at ten o’clock at night, Phil and the others called off the foot search and headed back to base. Phil went to the conference room and queued up the security footage Hill had gotten and Bruce brought enough coffee for all of them. The whole team came in and watched.

It was Tony who saw the first clue. “Wait, is that him? That looks like his vest,” he said, reaching over to stop the tape of a store that sold souvenirs and snacks, not far from a popular park. He backed up the footage and played it again. The camera never caught a face, but the person was certainly wearing something like Clint’s clothes.

Phil watched warily because something was off. The build was wrong, the movements were wrong, and Phil knew how Clint Barton moved. The person stole a sweatshirt and hat smoothly while the store operator was distracted, and ducked outside, avoiding the camera as he went. “That looked like his vest, yeah,” he said, making a note of the place on a pad of paper in front of him. “Let’s keep looking.”  They did, and it was when they looked at footage from the bus station that Phil caught it. He was watching the crowd when he saw the sweatshirt and hat that had been stolen from the other store. The guy was wearing jeans now, but was the same height and build as the guy who stole the clothes.

“He lifted that kid’s wallet,” Natasha said, pointing at the screen. They backed it up and watched it again, and the grainy footage didn’t give them much, but Tony froze the frame and held out his Starkpad and scanned it.

“Jarvis, clean this up,” he said, setting the pad down on the table where everyone gathered around. What they saw a minute later caused Phil’s knees to buckle a little and Natasha steered him over to a chair. Tony’s jaw dropped, Steve crossed his arms tightly over his chest, Thor scratched his head, and Bruce ran a hand wearily over his jaw. Phil saw Tony give himself a shake and then he said, “Jarvis, run a facial recognition comparison on this kid and Clint.” He stole a glance at Phil and shrugged. “Just to make sure.”

“It is a facial recognition match, sir,” Jarvis said from the tablet mere seconds later. “That is Agent Barton.”

Thor added quietly. “Magic, indeed.”

Phil took a deep breath. That was Clint stealing that wallet. Clint, who looked like he was maybe sixteen years old, who was missing the scar on his left cheek from the HYDRA agent who tortured him while Phil watched in horror three years ago, who was missing the lines of laughter around the blue eyes that Phil adored. This was Clint with longer hair framing his face, and smooth skin, and haunted eyes. This was a young Clint, and he was running, probably scared and definitely alone, doing what he knew how to do to survive.

“He’s cuter,” Tony said, staring at the screen and glancing up at Phil with a grin. Phil glowered at him and Tony added, “As a grownup, I mean – he looks like an asshole here.” 

“He doesn’t know what happened,” Natasha said carefully, and Phil could hear her measured tone, holding back whatever she was feeling inside. “If he knew, he’d come to us.”

Bruce asked, “Can we figure out whose wallet he took? That way if he uses the ID, we can find him.”

“Jarvis, run facial recognition on the kid who lost his wallet.”

That took longer, and Phil sipped his coffee while they waited. “Thor,” he asked, “Who could do this, altering his age?”

Thor grimaced and said, “There are several possibilities, Son of Coul. Would you like me to return to my people and see what we can find? Hemdall may be able to help.”

“Yes,” Phil answered. “We need to know how to reverse it as soon as possible.”

Thor left, and Natasha stood. “I’m going to get food. What do you guys want?”

Phil looked up as Tony said, “Hamburgers.” Phil shrugged and nodded, and Natasha left.

Tony let out a deep sigh as he stared at the photo of Clint at the station. “He looks like a baby there.”

Phil didn’t reply right away. Clint at sixteen or whatever he was here was _not_ a baby. At that age, he’d already been through more shit than Phil could even imagine, and Phil hadn’t had what would be called a stellar childhood. Neither had Tony. “He’s used to fending for himself and he’ll do a good job of it.” Phil closed his eyes for a moment and then looked at Tony. “He might be hard to find.”

Tony looked at Phil. “We’ll find him.”

Phil nodded, feeling warmth in his chest at the determined tone in Tony’s voice. They sat quietly for a few minutes waiting for Natasha to return with food, but Phil looked over once to see Tony scrub a hand down his face and sigh heavily. Phil raised an eyebrow in question and Bruce leaned forward in his chair.

Tony narrowed his eyes and said, his voice suddenly dark, “This is when it went to shit for him, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Phil answered, not sure about what Tony was getting at.

“He and I might have bonded a little over gin and tonics one or two times,” Tony said with a shrug. “He said he’d been able to handle the circus until he was sixteen but then everything went to hell. He said that’s when he ended up taking jobs no one should ever take. He didn’t elaborate, but it sounded bad.”

Phil nodded, remembering a few conversations over the years, some involving a version of gin and tonic and some just moments of honesty with each other. “Yes, he was almost seventeen when he had to leave the circus.”

Tony stood, crossing the room to get a closer look at the photograph. “So if things have gone to hell for him and now he wakes up here with those memories fresh. . .”

Phil stood, too, moving over next to Tony, who added, “He’s got to be scared out of his wits.”

“He was a tough kid, Tony. He didn’t back down or break. He just went down a bad path for a while. We’ll find him before he can make those kinds of choices, and we’ll get him back here and get the magic out of his system.” Phil said it to convince them both. He had to believe they’d find this _kid_ who would become one of Tony’s best friends and Phil’s partner. It was the only way it could work out.

He ignored the nagging feeling in his chest that told him that was easier said than done.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint heads for the only familiar sounding place in the city, and the team finally catches up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the generous pal at the feelschat for the destination idea here. I don't think I used it the way they thought I would, but the place itself wouldn't have occurred to me without their suggestion. Thanks also to lexxorz for beta help.

Clint climbed out from the top bunk too fucking early the next morning, unable to doze any longer, and he only felt a little better from the rest. He felt like he was coming down with a cold or something, a drained feeling and body aches, and it pissed him off. He couldn’t afford to get sick right now with things so weird. He had to be on his toes. He checked the wallet in his pocket to make sure it was still there, and he considered going back to that alley and grabbing that beautiful bow.

It probably wasn’t smart, though. New York City was full of oddballs, sure, but the cops might take an interest in a kid with a compound bow slung across his back, and Clint couldn’t afford that. Scrubbing his face at the sink in the hostel, he figured he’d try and find another busy place where he could scrounge a few more dollars and use the time it took to make a plan. He left the hostel around six-thirty and walked a few blocks before heading into a coffee shop.

The menu startled him. It was filled with words he’d never heard before, names of drinks that offered no clues as to what was inside, and the place was full of people sitting with small computers at their tables in front of them. He ordered a plain coffee of the day and a blueberry muffin, doctored the coffee with way too much sugar and cream, and sat down with his map of the city in front of him. When he saw the words ‘Coney Island’ on the map, he grinned.

He’d heard of Coney Island from other circus folk. It was supposed to be a wild and fun place, and Clint figured maybe it would feel familiar enough for him to at least get his feet back on the ground and figure out what to do. He stood, dumped his half-eaten muffin in the trash because he just wasn’t hungry, and headed out. The crisp, October air felt good as he walked, and he lit a cigarette and tried to blend in.

He was in Midtown, apparently, and had to make his way to Brooklyn to get to Coney Island, so he snagged a bus map from a stand and plotted out his route. It took a couple of hours thanks to a few mistakes, but he made it to the boardwalk late in the morning. It was perfect. It was unorganized and filled with tourists, and clearly getting a face lift. There were half-built shops and a few construction zones, but there was also a whole carnival-like section that did just what Clint hoped it would – settled his nerves a bit.

This kind of crowd was his kind of crowd, and he knew just what to do.

“I can win your kid a prize if you want,” he said with a smile to a man who was clearly a grandpa there with his five or six year-old granddaughter. The man looked distinguished, the kind of guy who would rather be anywhere else in the city, but his granddaughter was all curls and bounce and she grinned wildly up at Clint. “I mean, I’m good at this stuff,” Clint added as the guy eyed him suspiciously. They were standing near one of those games where you throw darts at a wall of balloons.

The guy clearly wasn’t sure, so Clint shrugged, handed five dollars over to the attendant, and stepped up to the game. He took the three darts from the attendant, tested their weight in his hand, and a couple minutes later he was laughing and handing the little girl a big stuffed cat. She was delighted and the man relaxed a little. “Thanks,” he said, and Clint smiled. He handed Clint a ten dollar bill and Clint laughed, pocketing the bill. They walked away and a teenager approached Clint.

He looked sheepish, about Clint’s age, and was holding hands with a cute girl with dark hair and the most beautiful brown eyes Clint had ever seen. “Hey, I really suck at this stuff, but she wants one of those dogs. Can you get it for me?” He asked, holding out seven bucks in Clint’s direction.

Clint shrugged and said, “Know your limits, huh man?” and the kid grinned and nodded. Clint took the cash, gave the attendant five, and pocketed the other two. A couple minutes later the kid shook Clint’s hand and said thanks again, as he and his girlfriend strolled away with her new stuffed dog. Clint took a couple other offers but the attendant started giving him the stink eye, so he pocketed his twenty bucks and wandered off to get himself a Coke to try and settle his weirdly nauseous stomach, and it helped a little.

He found another game where you threw balls at old fashioned milk bottles, and managed to get fifteen more bucks until the worker glared at him a little more threateningly than the guy earlier. After that he switched games every hour or so, and by three that afternoon he had almost eighty bucks in his wallet.

He decided a break might be good, so he headed across the street to the business area of the place and went looking for another coffee shop. He ended up wandering around just looking at the city instead, and he was going to head back to the carnival games after about an hour, but as he passed an alleyway, a rough hand grabbed his sweatshirt and yanked him to the ground.

He tried to roll away, but the guy who had him was strong, had at least thirty pounds on him, and slammed a fist into Clint’s side, dragging him down the alley away from the nearby street. Clint managed to scramble up for a second, but the guy punched him in the jaw and his head smacked against the brick wall behind him, his vision whited out for a second. He blinked up at his attacker, then, and groaned as he saw a knife in the guy’s hand. ”You’re gonna give me your wallet.”

Clint knew he should. He should just hand it over and scramble away, but it was all he had. He didn’t have a place and didn’t have an ID, and he needed this. So he took a deep, shaky breath and made a show of pulling his wallet out of his pocket, keeping a close eye on the knife. As he handed the money over to the thug, he dropped, shooting a kick at his knees. It surprised the guy, and Clint threw his weight into a roll, taking the bigger man’s feet out from under him. He swung at Clint as he landed, though, and Clint felt the cold edge of the knife slide against his side. He ignored it and made a grab for the knife as he swung his elbow into the guy’s ribs. The knife clattered to the ground as the guy grunted, and Clint grabbed it and threw it, hard, like Trick taught him in the dusty field behind the circus tent.

He saw the knife sink into the guy’s chest, and a sickening icy shudder ran through Clint’s body as he scrambled away. He stared at the guy grabbing desperately at the blade in his chest, and trying to get it out.  His hands fell to his side, slack, and Clint watched as the life went out in the man’s eyes.

Clint stood, panting and shaking, every nerve in his body vibrating. He stared at the pool of blood growing around the man’s torso, and swallowed thickly. There was a fire escape a few feet away, so he scrambled up to the ladder and climbed in a blind panic, making it to the roof without even registering the climb. He ran to the edge and leaped across to the next roof, but when he landed, pain exploded in his side.

He reached down and pulled his sweatshirt up, seeing blood running from a thin line across the side of his ribs. It hurt like a motherfucker, now that he’d noticed it, but it didn’t seem that deep, so Clint pressed his shirt to the wound and looked around. He needed to get away from that pool of blood in the alley below and find a place to hide, hide, hide. He felt himself begin to pant again. “Get it together, Barton,” he growled at himself, and moved to the edge of the roof he was on. He found another fire escape and climbed down, landing with a grimace in another alley.

He took a deep breath, schooled his face tightly, and headed out. He was about a block down the street when he realized he’d left the wallet in the alley, probably in a pool of blood. So now he had a cut up side and only twenty bucks that he hadn’t put in the wallet, and no ID. He could feel blood sliding down his skin as he found a small clothing shop and managed to buy a fifteen dollar green t-shirt. He used their dressing room and pulled his sweatshirt off, wiped what blood he could away, and pulled the t-shirt on. He ducked out of the shop and kept moving.

 

He found a drug store on the next block and used his remaining five bucks on a box of butterfly bandages and small tube of antibiotic cream. There was a park across the street, just a small one with a couple benches and a small swing set, but there was a stand of trees and he found one to sit against and he wiped his wound with the sweatshirt and cleaned it the best he could. He put a couple of the bandagers on and then looked around. It was still bleeding sluggishly, and his pants were stained, and he was tired, so tired.

He curled up a little against the tree and fell asleep, seeing dead eyes in a pool of blood.

* * *

 

At two in the morning, Jarvis announced to the room of weary Avengers that it was a Devon Smith who had lost his wallet to Clint at the bus station.

“He’s twenty years old, blond like Clint, and only a little taller. Clint can disappear,” Natasha said.

“He dumped his bow and clothes in a linear path and we found him de-aged in under five hours,” Phil retorted. “We’ll find him.”

“All we know is that he dumped his bow and he’s currently a teenager with way too long hair,” Tony stated flatly, “We don’t know what he can or can’t do.”

There was a minute of silence before Bruce added, “Tony’s right that predictability is low. All we know is that he didn’t buy a bus ticket using Smith’s ID.”

Phil took a deep breath and nodded. They were right, of course. Phil didn’t know this Clint. He’d heard about him, late at night when nightmares ripped Clint from sleep and Phil would rub small circles against his back as Clint would mumble about Barney, about his first kill, about doing and seeing things most men never did or saw before he was twenty years old, but he didn’t know him, and that sent a little shiver of fear down Phil’s back.

He ran a hand over his face and said, “We need to run a check on a ten mile radius from that bus station for anywhere the name Devon Smith or that ID is used for anything.” He looked at Bruce, who was sitting so low in his chair he might as well be on the floor. “You guys go get some sleep. I’m going to get a team to take out and canvas the area.”

Natasha looked at him like he had three heads, Tony crossed his arms across his chest, Steve stood from his chair, and Bruce just shook his head. “You’re getting a team?” he said, standing.

“I thought we were a team, Agent,” Tony added.

“It’s a long shot,” Phil answered. “He could be all the way across the city by now if he’s really running.”

“We’re coming,” Natasha said curtly, and Phil looked at them all and nodded, resigned.

Phil printed out five copies of the photo of Clint from the station, contacted the police department in the bus station’s precinct and sent them Clint’s photo, and the team finally started walking around three in the morning. After four hours of pointing at Clint’s picture and getting nothing, Phil and Natasha stumbled across a youth hostel on the edge of their ten mile radius, and the hostel manager nodded and said, “Yeah, he was here. But he left about forty-five minutes ago. Nice enough kid, I hope he’s not in too much trouble.”

Phil called the others and they met outside a nearby coffee shop and Natasha emerged with coffee for everyone and news that Clint had been there, too, but had left fifteen minutes ago. They were so close. Two hours of canvasing later, though, and they had nothing. The police were still keeping an eye out for Clint, but had reported nothing, either.

Phil called a stop to the Avengers’ efforts and ordered everyone to go get a few hours of sleep and let the police and computer program checking for Smith’s ID to do some of the work. “It’s clear he’s not in this area anymore,” he said. “Just a few hours so we can be a little more clear if we do find him. And we can try and figure out where he’d go.”

There were no protests this time, and Phil could see lines of exhaustion on everyone’s face, even Steve. They all retired to their apartments in the Tower, and Phil even stretched out on his bed and fell asleep staring at the photograph of Clint.

Three hours later, he woke in a sweat with the words “Coney Island” on his lips. He threw fresh clothes on and sprinted down to Natasha’s room and pounded on her door. She opened it quickly, and her eyes widened when she saw him.

“Coney Island,” Phil panted. “It would be a familiar feel, like the circus. He could get his bearings there.”

She grinned and nodded. “Yes,” she said, and stepped back to her room to arm herself before accompanying Phil to the common room to call everyone else. It was almost four in the afternoon when the rest of the team stumbled in and Phil explained where they were headed.

“Inspired, Agent,” Tony laughed.

Phil nodded, and then his cell phone rang. When he saw the number, his heart started racing. “Hello?” he said, and listened carefully, feeling the blood drain from his face. He sat down heavily on a nearby couch. The team crowded around him, startled. “What’s the address?” he asked, and grabbed some paper and a pen from Natasha’s hand. “Thank you, officer. I appreciate it,” he said, and hung up, staring at his phone for a second.

“Phil?” Natasha asked.

He looked at her and then at everyone else and stood from the couch. “The Brooklyn police just found a body in an alley, dead from a knife wound. It’s not Clint,” he said hurriedly, seeing the horrified looks on his team’s faces. “But the ID Clint stole was there, and the hat he had as well.” He took a deep breath. “Come on,” he said, and they all headed for the elevator.

Thirty minutes later, they were at the scene, looking around. Phil couldn’t stop staring at the spot where the body had been, the blood still spread across the pavement. Clint did this. A scared young boy who was out of time and on the run did this. It seemed like no matter where Clint ended up, his life was destined for trouble.

“The guy was a lot bigger than him,” Steve said, staring down at the blood at Phil’s feet.

“He knows how to handle knives from an act he did in the circus,” Phil answered, stepping back and looking around again.

Natasha was walking a circle around the scene, and Phil saw her look up and grin. “Phil,” she said, pointing, “He’d go up.” She leapt up to the fire escape and started climbing, and Steve followed her.

A minute later he saw them jump across from one roof to another. Phil thanked the police, and he and Tony and Bruce headed out in the direction Natasha and Steve had gone. A few minutes later they met them at the entrance to another alley.

“He’s injured,” Natasha reported, and Phil saw her hands clench at her side. “We found a small area where he must have sat down for a minute.”

“If he’s hurt, he might be close,” Tony said, and he looked around. There was a drugstore across the street and he didn’t even wait to tell the others; he just jogged across the street. He came back nodding. “Yeah, he was in there an hour or so ago.”

They all looked around. When Phil spotted the tiny park a block down, he motioned to his team and they followed.

Steve saw him first. He pointed, and Phil saw Clint curled almost into a ball at the foot of a tall tree, and his heart stuttered. Clint would be scared. Phil looked at the others and spoke softly. “He’s not going to trust us. I’ll approach and you all take up a perimeter. Make sure he _doesn’t_ get away.”

He met Natasha’s eyes for a moment, and she gave a slight nod and walked to the edge of the park. The others followed, and Phil approached the young man. He knelt down about a foot away and just looked for a moment. He saw tousled blond hair, longer than Phil had ever known Clint to wear, and a lean, lithe-looking body, not far from the man’s body he would have soon, but smaller through the shoulders than Phil was used to. Phil saw sweat beading on Clint’s forehead, and his eyes were moving quickly behind his lids. There was a bandage box sitting on the ground nearby, and a tube of ointment.

Phil had to tamp down the sudden thought that his Clint never would have let anyone get within ten yards of him in this situation – this was not his Clint.

“Clint, hey,” he called in a voice as even as he could make it. To be fair to the kid, he woke immediately, snapping his chin up and pulling himself to a sitting position with a harsh breath. He looked at Phil and would have scrambled backward if not for the tree behind him. “It’s okay. I’m here to help you,” Phil added.

Clint looked at him warily through the bangs that hung almost in his eyes, taking deep breaths and looking around the park. As soon as he spotted the others he turned back to Phil with a glare. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“It’s complicated, Clint,” Phil answered. “But the short version is that we’re your friends.” As soon as the words registered, Phil wondered if he’d made a mistake not opening with the government organization information.

Clint’s eyes narrowed and he set his shoulders, and he stood slowly, trying to hide a wince, looking around. “That’s bullshit,” he said, his voice low. “How do you know who I am?”

“I assume you’re aware that it’s 2013 now,” Phil began. “I also assume you know that it was 1993 when you woke up yesterday morning, so please don’t expect what I’m about to tell you to make much sense, but it’s true.” Clint just nodded and turned his stance a little more defensive. “You are actually part of an elite fighting team – the people you see here around me – and you were hit with a weapon that turned you back into a teenager.”

The laughter or cussing that Phil halfway expected didn’t happen. Instead, Clint looked around again at the others and took a step away from Phil. “I don’t believe you,” he said quietly, his mouth suddenly making a determined line that Phil was very familiar with. “I can’t fight that good and I’m not that smart, so I doubt I’d end up on some _elite_ _team_ ,” he added scornfully, “And who the fuck has a weapon that would do something stupid like that?”

“Do you have a better explanation for what happened to you in the last forty-eight hours?” Phil asked, staying where he was.

Clint looked around again and then shook his head. “No,” he said, and then something clearly clicked in his head. “You’re cops, aren’t you?” he said, taking another step away.

Clint looked ready to spring, and sure enough he gave Phil one beat and then leapt, trying to shove him to the ground. Phil dodged easily and grabbed Clint’s wrist, twisting enough to bring him to his knees. Clint swung his free hand and managed to get a little strength behind it, slamming his fist into Phil’s nose. The pain surprised Phil for a moment, but Natasha was there, pulling Clint off of him and knocking him to the ground. She pinned his arms.

“Clinton Francis Barton,” she said evenly, holding Clint’s gaze with ease. “You grew up in Waverly, Iowa and were orphaned when you were seven. You spent time in the foster system and at an orphanage and then you and your brother joined a traveling circus. You became The Amazing Hawkeye and were the star of your own act.” She paused and looked at Phil.

He nodded and knelt down next to Clint. “Your brother and a man called Duquesne were robbing the circus and you tried to stop them. Barney stabbed you,” and as soon as those words were out of Phil’s mouth all the tension left Clint’s body and he shut his eyes.

“Shut up,” he said, his voice shaky. “Shut the fuck up about Barney. You can’t know anything about him.”

Phil nodded and said, “Natasha, let him up.” She did, and she offered Clint a hand, which he took hesitantly. As soon as he was vertical, he put a hand to his side and looked at the ground. He didn’t say a word, so Phil did. “We’ll take you to our base of operations where you usually live and get you cleaned up. Then we’ll start trying to figure out how to fix this,” he said gently. Clint didn’t answer, just kept looking at the ground. He gave a brief nod, though, and the rest of the team approached cautiously. “Stark, can you call for a –“

“Happy’s on his way, Agent. Figured he was the best choice at the moment. He’ll be here in ten,” Tony interrupted. He reached his hand out to Clint. “I’m Tony Stark,” he said simply, and Clint looked up for a moment and then just looked down again, leaving Tony’s hand hanging. Tony shrugged and introduced the rest of the team to the top of Clint’s head.

Phil watched Clint sneak a glance and measure each person carefully before he dropped his eyes back to the ground and crossed his arms defensively. They stood quietly until Happy pulled up, and then Phil ushered Clint to the limo and climbed in next to him. Clint just stared out the window until they got to the Tower.

Forty minutes later, Clint had a fresh bandage on his side, had managed to wash his face, and had fresh clothes that Natasha brought down from his room. They almost fit. Phil had stayed with him the whole time, but the kid never said a word, just letting the doctor called over from SHIELD patch him up and mumbling answers to his medical questions. It came up that Clint hadn’t eaten in a while, so the doctor asked Phil to make sure he got some food and then some serious rest.

Phil took the doctor’s orders and then took Clint upstairs to the common room where the rest of the team were waiting.

“So!” Tony said, “Do you want a soda or a juice or something non-alcoholic?”

Steve glared at him but waited for Clint to answer. He didn’t.

“Sprite with a lime it is,” Tony said, reaching down to the mini-fridge and pulling out a soda can. He set the drink on the bar but the teenager made no move to claim it.

“We’ve got some spaghetti and salad if you’re hungry,” Bruce said, keeping his voice in that ‘you’re safe here’ mode that Phil admired greatly.

Clint shrugged and Natasha steered him over to the table. They sat down and passed plates quietly.

“So,” Tony said. “Where were you before you woke up in the Big Apple?”

Phil had to give him credit for cutting right to the chase.

“Richmond, Indiana,” Clint replied, eyes locked on the plate in front of him. Phil watched as he glanced at Steve, who had dug into his food, and took a hesitant bite of spaghetti. His voice was quiet, something none of them were used to when dealing with Clint in a group.

“What were you doing there?” Steve asked politely.

Clint stopped his fork as he was spinning some pasta, and looked up at Steve and shrugged. “I don’t know.  Just hanging out.”

Phil took a sip of his iced tea and said, “Clint, is there anything you want to know from us? We can tell you whatever you need.”

Clint stared at Phil for a moment and Phil had to try hard not to wilt under his gaze. After a moment, Clint shoved his plate away and turned his eyes downward again, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Clint?” Bruce said.

His head still down, Clint said, “You guys know I killed a guy this afternoon, right? No one seems to be addressing that little issue, and I can’t figure out why I’m not sitting in some jail cell right now.”

Phil sighed, kicking himself in his own exhaustion. That should have been explained first off. “Clint, the police and our team have clear communication. They know you’re with us, and they know you confessed about killing that man. But they also know it was self-defense, and the guy had a rap sheet a mile long. We organized a compromise where you stay with us until we have a chance to figure this magic out and they set it aside until then. We have a bit before we have to go back to that issue, but if we do, we also have a fine legal team who will work with you to make sure you’re cleared.”

There was a pause, and Tony asked, “It _was_ self-defense, right?”

Clint glared at him and nodded, and Coulson realized he was barely holding it together. That told Phil a lot. “Clint, it wasn’t your fault. It was his knife, you were just defending yourself. We know that.”

“Okay,” Clint said, and he reached for his Sprite with a trembling hand.

Half an hour later, after Clint took about four bites of the spaghetti and said nothing else, Phil took him to his apartment and explained Jarvis and the security he offered.

“You can shower or sleep or watch TV, whatever you feel like doing, okay?” Phil said, standing in the living room of Clint’s apartment.

“This place looks. . . unused,” Clint said, opening the empty refrigerator.

Phil sighed. “Yeah, you don’t stay here much, really,” he said, hoping that explanation would be enough for now. Trying to explain their three year relationship and apartment a few blocks away seemed like a bad idea at the moment.

Phil just wanted to reach forward and wrap Clint in a hug, but that, he figured, was _definitely_ a bad idea.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fears on both sides. . .

Clint stood in the room that Agent Coulson said was his, wrapping his arms around himself. His brain kept switching from this crazy, rich people’s tower – does he end up rich? That’d be cool – to that alley soaked in blood and then back to the alley in Richmond where his old life ended. He clenched his arms tighter.

“Clint,” Agent Coulson said, but Clint didn’t look up at him; he couldn’t. “You need to get some sleep.”

Clint tried not to laugh. He felt the last two days in every single inch of his body and he knew he needed to sleep. He nodded at Coulson. He and the others were trying to be nice to him; he recognized that. They weren’t concerned about _him_ , though. They were concerned about the guy who lived in this room from time to time. Coulson was waiting with a concerned look on his face, so Clint shrugged. “I’ll try to sleep.”

“I know it’s hard, Clint,” Coulson said quietly. “You killed a man today.”

Clint’s head snapped up and he met Coulson’s eyes. He was startled by their clarity, startled by their depth and the way he looked at Clint like he knew him, understood him. He wavered on his feet, feeling thrown off balance, and Coulson stepped to his side quickly, grabbing his arm and steering to the green couch against the wall.

“Whoa,” Coulson said gently. “You’re okay, kid.”

Clint put his head down, almost to his knees, and he felt Coulson let go and heard him move across the room and run some water in the sink. “Here,” he said a moment later, “Drink this.”

Clint took the water, knowing what was good for him. “Been feeling like crap all day,” he mumbled, hesitant to share too much.

“Before the fight?” Coulson asked.

“Yeah, a bit. But, you know, it was 1993 yesterday. I’ve been traveling a long time,” Clint said with a tired chuckle and he saw Coulson grin.

“You have been,” he replied.

Clint drank the water greedily and sat up a little straighter, running his hand through his hair. “I’ll try and sleep,” he said with a sigh.

“Do you want to talk about what happened in that alley this afternoon?” Coulson asked.

Clint looked at him carefully and weighed his choices. In the end, he didn’t know this guy and he didn’t really know how to explain the sick tightness in his chest, the way he saw the man’s lifeless eyes every time he blinked, the way he just wanted to shout to the universe that he hadn’t meant to kill him. “No. I just want to sleep,” he answered.

Coulson nodded and helped Clint up off the couch. Clint followed him to the bedroom, looking around for anything that might be a clue to the man he grew up to be. There wasn’t much in the room. A small, full bookshelf surprised him, and there was a gorgeous painting of an archer on one wall. When he saw the photograph on the nightstand he raised an eyebrow and looked at his current guardian. It was a photo of him with Coulson and that woman named Natasha and they had their arms thrown around each other’s shoulders.

Clint was overwhelmed, for a moment, by a wave of exhaustion mixed with a wave of uncertainty. The photo didn’t look like him. The man with short blonde hair and sparkling eyes looked like he could be a relative, but not him. He couldn’t imagine becoming that man.

“We were friends?” he asked without looking at Coulson.

“We _are_ friends,” Coulson answered, and Clint heard gentleness in his voice, which was jarring to Clint. “I’ve known you for eleven years. Natasha has known you for eight years.”

“And we’re friends,” Clint said, sitting heavily down on the edge of the bed. He hadn’t known anyone but Barney for even close to eight years, much less eleven. The thought seemed impossible. He scrubbed a hand over his face and then looked at Coulson, the picture of patience. “I’ll try and sleep now. I’m okay.”

Coulson nodded. “I’ll check on you in the morning. Or ask Jarvis to call me or if you need help.”

“You talk about it like it’s real,” Clint said, gesturing to the ceiling, wherever this computer was. He reached down and pulled off his shoes.

“He is, though,” Coulson replied. “He learns and responds. You’ll get used to him.”

“If I stay,” Clint said, looking up.

Coulson looked startled. “Yes. If you stay.” Clint waited and Coulson shrugged. “Call me if you need anything.”

Clint nodded and put his head down to his chest as he heard Coulson retreat. He let out a slow breath and rolled his shoulders, looked around the room, and before he knew it, he was rummaging through drawers, sifting through the closet.

He didn’t find much. A few bills in the kitchen for archery supplies, a wardrobe almost bare, consisting of t-shirts, pants with a lot of pockets, boots, running shoes, and an old recurve bow that stole Clint’s breath when he saw it. That bow, that same bow, was sitting in a locker in Indiana right now. Clint ran his hand slowly over the bow and thought for a moment that maybe what Coulson said was true. A spell.

He stepped back and collapsed onto the bed, and he just stared at the ceiling until he finally fell asleep.

He woke with a yell, feeling a knife in his chest, seeing his brother and the guy from the alley standing over him together. His breath caught, stuttered, and he sat up, heaving. His hair was damp with sweat and he was very, very thirsty, so he went to the kitchen and drank three bottles of water he found in the fridge. When he was done, his hands were still shaking, so he found his way out to the balcony off of his living room, sucking in the cool, night air like it was more water. He gripped the railing hard, and then threw himself into a lounge chair.

He pulled his cigarettes out and lit one, hoping the nicotine would soothe the shake in his hands. He smoked the first one quickly and he finally felt calmer, stopped shaking, and he leaned back, looking out at the city lights below.  He lit another cigarette.

When someone said, “I didn’t know you smoked,” he practically fell out of the chair. He righted himself, looked to his right, and saw Natasha leaning against the balcony railing.

“I must’ve wised up,” he said, trying to regain his composure. He was grateful that she didn’t laugh at him.

She smiled and gestured to the other chair, asking permission to sit. He shrugged and nodded as she sat down, mirroring his position. She didn’t talk, and he waited a minute or two before he sighed. “What do you want?”

“We were monitoring your vitals as you slept and there was a spike in your heart rate. I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she answered.

He felt a surge of anger. “Monitoring me? Why?”

“Because you were hit with a magic spell yesterday, were in a fight today, and haven’t eaten anything since we found you,” she replied, and Clint admired her coolness.

It still annoyed him, though, and he said, “Fucking spying on me.”

“Monitoring your vitals, Barton. We weren’t watching you jerk off or read a book or whatever you were doing. We just don’t want your body to shut down thanks to whatever magic is running through it right now.”

He stood, taking another drag, and leaned against the railing. “Magic. This is so fucking weird.”

After a minute, Natasha stood and moved next to him. “Everyone else is sleeping, but Steve is up and makes pancakes almost as good as you do. Think maybe you could eat those?”

He didn’t answer right away, just finished his cigarette and ground it out beneath his foot. He grabbed the railing and leaned back, breathing deeply again, and then he looked over at her. “I guess I could try.”

They made their way to the kitchen and Steve was sitting there reading a book. “Oh, hey Clint,” he said.

“Hey.” Clint tried to school his features, but Steve was sitting there in loose pajama pants and a threadbare blue t-shirt and Clint might be out of his depth and scared, but the sight distracted him, suddenly making his mouth go a little dry. He swallowed and looked away.

“Steve, think you can whip up some pancakes? Might be easier on his stomach than Italian food,” Natasha asked, sitting down across from him.

“Sure!” Steve said, pushing his chair back from the table. Clint looked back at him, keeping his breathing even, and Steve added, “You’re actually better at this than I am, Clint. Any chance you could help?”

Clint shrugged and nodded. “I guess.” It was something to do, and he was pretty good at it. Steve got him a bowl and started digging ingredients out of the cupboards, and Clint measured out the flour and began.

After a quiet moment, Steve said, “I never heard where you learned how to do this so well,” and looked expectantly over at Clint.

Clint lost himself for a minute in the warm memory of the diner, and found himself smiling at Steve. “There’s a diner in Cedar Rapids and we pass thr— _passed_ through there at least four or five times over our season. A guy named Bill and his wife, Donna, ran it and they used to feed all us kids breakfast at half price when we came in. After two seasons or so I asked if they could show me how to make their pancakes because they were so damned good and it was easy to make up the dry ingredients in bulk and make them on the road. Bill showed me and then let me make ‘em every time we came through. He showed me how to make a pretty good waffle, too, but those are harder on the road.”

He noticed Natasha watching him closely with a gleam in her eye as he spoke, but he ignored it. He went back to the pancakes and was stirring the batter lightly and decided to ask. “Coulson said you guys are a fighting team. What does that mean?”

Just then Tony Stark burst into the kitchen wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. He had grease on his face and goggles on his head. “We fight bad guys, kid. Are you making pancakes? They roped you into that in the middle of all of this?” He pulled himself up to sit on the counter, wiping his hands with a towel.

Clint felt his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean, bad guys? Are you spies or something?” He was confused. A team just to fight – who did they fight?

“We’re not, but you, Natasha, and Coulson kind of are,” Tony answered. “We fight Bad Guys. Day before yesterday it was bad robots, but you get the idea. There are threats now that weren’t as obvious in 1993. We fight them. You shoot them with arrows that I design.”

Clint put down his stirring fork with a clang and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. He felt his breathing pick up and he clenched his jaw and looked at the floor.

“Clint?” Steve said, and he put his hand on Clint’s elbow.

Clint yanked his arm away and turned to get out of there. He shot people with arrows. He killed people on purpose for a _job_. He wasn’t supposed to _keep_ killing. He was a performer, not a killer. A dumb kid, but not stupid.

He stepped to the entry to the kitchen, but Natasha blocked it. He glared at her and pulled ragged breaths through his nose. “Let me go,” he said, his voice rough.

“No,” she said. “Sit down, Barton.”

“Let me go,” he said again, stepping toward her. She didn’t budge.

“Clint,” Steve said gently, stepping behind him but not touching him this time. “Sit down. We’ll talk through this. Tony can’t be discreet to save his life, but he’s right. It’s bad guys we fight. It’s a good thing. The world needs us.”

Clint didn’t listen. He needed to get away. He needed to breathe, to run, to get away. This wasn’t his world. This couldn’t be his life. He tried to be a _good_ kid, he tried not to hurt _anyone_. He hadn’t meant to kill that man today and he couldn’t get the blood out of his mind.

He felt his breath coming faster, and he was dizzy as he took a step back from Natasha and spun. He thought he’d jump over the counter if he had to, but when he spun, his legs decided not to do their job anymore and he stumbled right into Steve’s arms. He curled in at the touch and went to the floor, curling up, closing his eyes.

“I don’t kill people,” he muttered, “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to.” His throat felt like sandpaper and his lungs felt squeezed tight. He kept seeing the man’s dead eyes, and blood rushed in his ears and he felt hands on his back and a concerned voice saying, “Jarvis, call Coulson.” Natasha’s voice was close to his ear as he muttered and rocked back and forth. “Clint, breathe,” she insisted, and Clint realized he was holding his breath. He drew a short breath and another. It was too fast, and he clenched his eyes shut and grabbed his hair, pulling and hoping the pain would make this guilt go away.

Short, sharp breaths and the words “I didn’t mean to do it. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it again,” were all that he could manage. He saw the alleyway and he saw the body of the man, his eyes still open, the knife stuck in his chest and the dark, red, viscous blood pooling around the body. “He was going to hurt me, I didn’t mean to,” he whispered, tugging on his hair and feeling his breath catch in his throat. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“We know, Clint, just breathe. Look at me,” Natasha ordered, and he felt her hands on his face, cool and firm. “Look at me now, Clint.”

He squinted at her, saw beautiful green eyes filled with concern. He heaved another breath.

“Breathe with me, Clint, keep looking at me.”

He did, he sucked in a breath as she did, tried to hold her gaze and breathe. He saw the blood again, and clenched his eyes shut but she said, “Open your eyes, Clint,” so he did. He didn’t want to cry, but as he got his breathing under control he felt tears welling in his eyes. He swallowed them down, though, and let his hands fall to the floor, palms down. Natasha still framed his face, breathing purposefully, willing him to follow her, and he did, and it felt natural.

He felt Steve squeeze his shoulder and a glass appeared at his elbow. “Here,” Steve said, “Have some water.”

He was drinking the water greedily--god it tasted good--when Coulson appeared in the doorway wearing navy pajama pants and a white t-shirt. “Clint, are you all right?” he asked, taking in the scene carefully.

Clint shrugged and tried to sit up straighter. “I guess so.”

“Tony told him what he does for a living,” Natasha said, glaring over Clint’s shoulder at Stark.

Clint saw Coulson rub his hand down his face and sigh. Then he reached a hand down to help Clint up, and Clint took it. Natasha stood, too, and put a steadying hand on Clint’s arm, guiding him to the table and sitting him down in a chair.

“Tony, Steve, could you leave us alone for a bit?” Coulson asked.

They nodded and were about to leave when Tony turned around and then leaned over the table so he was right in Clint’s face. “The Clint Barton I know is one of the best men I’ve ever met,” he said forcefully. “You need to understand that.” He stood up straight and then called over his shoulder, “And he makes the best pancakes I’ve ever had – that should count for something!”

Clint watched him go, along with Steve, and then took another drink as Coulson and Natasha sat down next to him. It was quiet, and Clint put his head in his hands. None of this made any sense.

* * *

 

When Phil made it to the kitchen after Jarvis woke him, his heart sank. Clint was sitting on the floor, pale and drinking a glass of water with shaking hands while Natasha was gently holding him steady. Steve had a hand on Clint’s back and Tony was standing over them looking vaguely confused.

A minute later, Phil, Natasha and Clint were sitting at the table, just the three of them, Clint’s eyes veiled and guarded, so much like when Phil first met him so many years ago.

“You honed your circus skills into contract assassin skills, Clint. We gave you a chance to use those same skills for good. Natasha can tell you how much good the three of us have done as a team. We’ve prevented wars, made sure _bad_ people stopped hurting innocent people, and protected a lot of _good_ people before they could get hurt. You and the others helped _defeat an alien army_ that attacked Earth. Do you kill people as part of your job? Yes, but it’s only part of your job, and a very small part at that. And it’s definitely _not_ who you are.”

Phil watched as his words hit Clint and he nodded and rubbed his eyes wearily. Phil knew it was time to back off, but he wanted to reach over and shake Clint and make him see what Phil was saying. Make him lose that veiled look and see Phil. Instead, Natasha handled things the right way.

“You need to eat something and try sleeping again, Clint,” she said quietly. She stood and found some cereal in a cupboard and fixed Clint a bowl, along with a glass of apple juice. “We’ll do pancakes later,” she said as she set the bowl down in front of him.

He looked at it like it was challenging him, but picked up the spoon with a sigh and managed to finish the whole bowl and the juice.

“You still feeling sick?” Phil asked.

“A little,” Clint mumbled. “The cereal is the first thing to taste decent since all of this happened.” He paused and leaned back in his chair. “I couldn’t sleep, though,” he said, looking at Phil. “I had a nightmare.”

He sounded reluctant to tell Phil, and looked at him like he was expecting a rebuke. “I have a sleep-aid I can give you,” Phil said instead. “It will settle you a little more and let you sleep longer. You need to try despite the nightmares.” He leaned forward and looked Clint in the eye. “They’ll settle down eventually, you know. They won’t go away, but they’ll settle down.” Phil still got yanked from sleep by his own nightmares a few times a week, and he had held Clint through his just as often.

Clint nodded, and Phil couldn’t help the yawn that escaped. Natasha chuckled. “Go back to bed, Phil. I’ll take him back upstairs.”

“I know the way,” Clint said. “I’ll be able to get in, right?”

Phil suddenly realized he probably wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight after all, but said, “Sure. Jarvis will let you in. Wait here a minute, though. I’ll get you that pill.”

“Um, no thanks,” Clint answered. “I’ll try sleeping again on my own. I don’t really like drugs.”

Phil exchanged a look with Natasha and decided to let it go one more night. If they had to sedate the kid eventually, they would. Phil didn’t want him getting sick. “Okay,” he answered. “Let us know if you need anything.”

Clint nodded and gave a small wave as he shuffled off back to his rooms. After he was gone, Natasha sighed. “Do you think he’ll try to run?” She asked, sipping some tea.

Phil chuckled. “I’d expect nothing less.”

She sighed and set her mug down. “So strange to see him like this.”

“He looks so young,” Phil said, agreeing.

“That’s not a bad thing,” Natasha smirked.

“Natasha, he’s underage,” Phil admonished.

“And you’re not going to do anything. Still cute, though,” she said, nudging his foot.

“Yeah, he is,” Phil said with a smile. “I’d seen a few circus promo photos, but it’s different in person, that’s for sure.”

She sighed. “Sorry you didn’t get to sleep longer. He seems to trust you a little already, though.”

“I’m grateful for that. I just hope we figure out how to turn him back sometime soon. None of us need this garbage, especially him,” Phil said. Clint needed more magic in his life like he needed a hole in his head. Phil needed it about as much, if he were being honest. He stood from the table and stretched. “I’m going to go get a shower and then some proper coffee.” He looked at his watch.

“Even if he tries to sleep,” Natasha said as she stood, “He’ll probably bolt after an hour or two.”

“I’m going to have Jarvis let him go,” Phil said, looking down the hallway where Clint disappeared. “Help me follow him for a bit?”

“Sure,” she answered easily.

Phil wanted Clint to feel like he could have a little distance, but he and Natasha would keep him safe. He also wondered what a young Clint would do if he got out of here. He wanted to see where he’d go. If they could let him go and then talk him back to the Tower, the likelihood of him bolting again was lower.

It might be a gamble, but they’d keep him safe.

Sure enough, two hours later, Jarvis alerted him that Clint was using the emergency staircase to get out of the tower. Unsure of that line of thinking, Phil swallowed the last of the pot of coffee he’d brewed earlier, called Natasha, and took the elevator down to the lobby, finding a discreet spot in the shadows to watch Clint leave. He saw Natasha slip out the front door to position herself outside.

“Comm check,” he said quietly.

Her voice in his ear responded, “Check. How long do you want to let him roam?”

“Let’s see where he goes,” Phil replied. They waited another minute before Phil saw Clint slip out of the emergency stairwell and quickly out the front door. Phil’s breath hitched as he realized that Clint chose jeans and a white t-shirt and a black button down that Phil bought for him a few months ago to wear out. It didn’t quite fit him right, but the sight of him in familiar clothes made Phil blink hard before he took a deep breath and followed him out the door.

Phil followed behind Clint, and Natasha stayed out in front of him, following Phil’s voice commands to stay within range of them. Clint tried to be subtle, he stuck to the shadows for a while and he looked around furtively every few seconds, but Phil almost groaned at the complete lack of skills when it came to trying to disappear. It made his job easier, though, so he saw when Clint lifted a wallet off of an international tourist and another off of a drunk college-aged kid a few minutes later. He had Natasha hold a hundred yards or so out from Clint as he stood against a wall and counted the money from the two wallets. His grimace and kick of the ground in front of him told Phil that he didn’t get as much from the take as he’d hoped.

A few minutes later, Clint found his way to a crowd outside a nightclub, and he lifted another wallet. He was good at it, Phil could tell, but a minute later, when a tall, thick red-headed guy shoved Clint down an alley and slammed his fist into Clint’s stomach, Phil realized that someone else had noticed Clint’s talents. “Natasha, alley between the Starbucks and Wendy’s, now,” he commanded, and then he ran into the alley and kicked the man’s legs out from under him before he could hit Clint again.

The guy rolled, but Phil dropped an elbow into his stomach and found a knife at the guy’s belt, yanked it, and had it at his throat just as Natasha skidded to a halt next to him. “Get up,” Phil snarled, his breath heavy with adrenaline and more anger than the guy probably deserved. Clint had been an idiot counting his money out in the open like that, but Phil’s anger was all for this asshole who was going to beat up his – what, exactly? He let a breath out as the guy stood and backed up. Natasha had two knives pulled from her boots and was keeping them nice and visible.

“What the fuck,” the attacker said breathlessly.

“Get the hell out of here before I give her permission to use those,” Phil said, nodding at Natasha and taking a threatening step toward the guy, and he turned and ran without looking back. Smart man, Phil thought, slipping the knife into his suit jacket and looking back at Clint.

Clint had sunk to the ground, his back against the brick wall of the alley, and he stared wordlessly at Phil and Natasha, his breath jagged and loud.

Natasha knelt down beside him. “Are you all right?” she asked, running her eyes over him carefully. Phil stood behind her, looking down at them.

Clint nodded and tried to stand. He stumbled a little, his hand going to his stomach, and Phil reached out and grabbed him by the elbow, steadying him. He stepped closer and wrapped his arm around Clint’s waist as Natasha put her hand on his shoulder.

“Come on,” Phil said. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

By the time they got to the Starbucks, Phil had let go of Clint’s waist and he’d walked steadily to a table in the corner. Phil went to get drinks and Natasha slid into the booth next to Clint and was talking quietly to him as Phil watched. He took a couple of coffees and a strawberry smoothie over to the table and handed them out, giving Clint a straw and saying, “Go on. You’ll like it,” as Clint looked suspiciously at the fruity drink in front of him.

After Phil sat down and Clint raised an eyebrow in approval of the drink, Natasha sighed. “Come back with us to the Tower, Clint. I know you don’t want to be stuck, but give us a chance to figure out what happened and if we can fix it.”

Clint took another sip of the drink and looked at Phil. “You guys aren’t mad?”

Phil smiled at him. “No. What you did, it’s very you. We were expecting it, which is why we were there. We’re not mad. But we do want you to give us a chance.”

Clint sighed heavily. “I’m not used to being _stuck_ anywhere,” he said, and lowered his eyes to the table. “ _Or_ having people monitor me,” he added.

Phil sighed. “We know. The monitoring really was just for health reasons, though. If you’ll take one of us with you, you’re free to go out and about in the city.”

“A chaperone?” Clint said, glaring at Phil.

“A bodyguard,” Natasha answered quickly.

“Clint,” Phil said, folding his hands on the table. “Someone did this to you. They did it and then disappeared, and we don’t know who it is. If they’ve targeted you for this, they could target you for something else, too. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

Clint stared at both of them and then took another drink of the smoothie. “I like this,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you think Jarvis could tell me how to make one?”

Phil and Natasha smiled, and Phil answered, “Yeah. But you gotta come back with us to do that.”

Clint nodded. “Okay,” he said. “But if they can’t figure out what happened, I get to decide what I do next. You guys don’t get to decide,” he said, and his voice took on a hard edge.

“Okay,” Phil replied. “That’s a fair deal.”

It was. This was Clint’s life and he was the one who got to choose what to do with it, even if all the choices but one sent ice down Phil’s spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to lexxorz for beta help and lightning speed. I appreciate all the comments and kudos a great deal in this, my first de-aging fic! (Concrit is welcome!)


	4. Up and Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint starts to realize what kind of friends his future self has found, he gets to shoot again, and Phil gets an answer he really, really doesn't like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to lexxorz for beta help, and I appreciate everyone's patience for this chapter. Hopefully that kind of wait won't happen again, and I hope you like this one!

 

“Here,” Coulson said, holding out a couple small pills, “They’re not going to make you fuzzy or anything, and they’re non-addictive. Just this once, okay? You really need some rest.”

Clint eyed the pills and looked toward the bedroom. His body was tingling with exhaustion and the walk back to the Tower from Starbucks had felt like miles, even though it was just a few blocks. Coulson (‘You can call me Phil, you know’) and Natasha had hovered close the whole time, clearly worried that Clint was going to face plant at some point. He didn’t, but at the moment he felt like he could sleep for three days if the fucking nightmares would stay away.

“Okay,” he finally said, taking the pills from Coulson’s hand and heading for the kitchen area for some water. He downed a whole bottle along with the pills – it’s okay, he told himself as he swallowed, these aren’t drugs like some of the circus kids had – and wiped his mouth on his sleeve and rolled his shoulders. “Thanks.”

There was something off in Coulson’s stance, something hesitant that Clint hadn’t seen in the past day and a half. He suddenly cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Would you mind if I stayed on your couch?” Coulson asked, meeting Clint’s puzzled gaze. “I won’t bother you – I have some work I can get done – but I’ll be here if you wake up and need anything.” After a pause while Clint tried to decide how to answer, Coulson added “You can keep your door shut. I really won’t bother you unless you need something.”

Clint didn’t quite know what to make of the request, but he suddenly felt his body sag a little and holding himself upright got noticeably tougher. He shrugged, figuring they were going to ‘keep an eye on him’ somehow anyway, and said, “Okay. If you want to. I’m going to sleep.”

“Thank you,” Coulson said, and Clint just gave a small wave and headed to the bedroom. This time he dug around in the dresser and found some sleep pants and an ARMY t-shirt and put them on. He even managed to crawl under the covers this time, and he was asleep before he could think about anything that had happened.

He woke with a gasp, but as he pulled the covers up around his chin he really couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming of. He looked around the room and saw nothing different. He let his eyes linger on the photograph of him and Coulson and Natasha. He was wearing a slick blue-grey dress shirt and had a tie looped around his neck, his collar was unbuttoned and his sleeves were rolled up, clearly the end of a party or something. Coulson was in similar attire, his shirt white and his tie merely loosened, and Natasha was in a breathtaking red dress and was holding her black high heels in her free hand. They were all grinning like fools, Coulson’s a bit more reserved than Clint’s, but his eyes bright with laughter.

Clint pulled his knees up to his chest. He’d never worn a suit in his life; even at his parents’ funeral he only had a sweater and threadbare jeans. His eyes burned a little at the thought of his mother, wondering what she’d think of what had become of her sons. She hadn’t done a bang-up job of it, but she had tried to protect them until she died. She definitely wouldn’t have foreseen what Barney did or Clint ending up in a rich guy’s veritable castle.

He stretched and climbed out of bed, his muscles feeling a lot better than they had before, but his mouth was bone-dry and he still felt kind of shaky. He headed for the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of water as he glanced over at the couch. Coulson was sleeping and Clint almost laughed at how uncomfortable he looked, clearly having fallen asleep while trying to work. He had some mercy, though, practically feeling the kink in Coulson’s neck that was sure to be there when he woke.

“Coulson,” he said firmly, and the guy woke immediately, starting to look around the room but wincing and putting his hand to his neck. Clint grinned at him. “Not the best sleeping spot, huh?”

Coulson yawned and set his files on the table in front of him, standing up to stretch. “No, and judging from my neck I’ve been there awhile.”

Clint looked at the clock on the stove and shrugged. “It’s two o’clock – six hours or so?” He finished the bottle and grabbed another one, moving to the living area to join Coulson. “I got some decent sleep – thanks.”

“Sure. I figured the pills would help. You look a little better,” he said, running his eyes over Clint’s body carefully, stopping for a second at the t-shirt before meeting Clint’s gaze. “Are you hungry?”

Clint considered it. “No. Which is kinda weird, right? I mean, I’m always hungry.” As soon as the words left his mouth he cringed a little as he was reminded of his usual hand-to-mouth days and felt a little pathetic.

Coulson just nodded and gave him a small smile. “You’re a typical teenager.”

Clint was grateful for the out, and he felt a flush of warmth at Coulson’s smile. He nodded. “Well, I’m not hungry now, but I could probably do one of those smoothie things if we can get the stuff for it.”   

“Yep,” Coulson said.  “We’ll have to go back to the common kitchen for that, though, come on.” He gathered up his files and computer and led the way out of the apartment.

Clint followed, and wondered about the feeling of security that Coulson’s presence seemed to bring out. He fingered the worn t-shirt he was wearing as they walked. “Was I in the Army?” he asked.

Coulson stopped suddenly and looked back at him for a moment too long before he said, “No,” and turned back down the hallway.

“Huh,” Clint said. “I thought about it not too long ago, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was.”

They came to the kitchen, which was empty, and Coulson set his things down on the breakfast bar before going to the sink and washing his hands. Clint dragged a stool up to the bar and sat down and watched as the other man pulled ingredients from the fancy refrigerator.

“What were you going to do?” Coulson said, kinda quiet, as he set strawberries and yogurt and milk on the nearby counter.

“Huh?” Clint asked, absently fiddling with a napkin that had been left out on the bar.

“You were in Richmond, Indiana. Where were you headed?” Coulson clarified as he dug a paring knife out of a drawer.

Clint shrugged and looked down at the napkin in his hands. “I was going to go south. Florida or Tennessee or something. Wherever I could scrape enough cash to get to that was warm.”

“Why?”

Clint chuckled. “Well, I figured if I was going to be homeless I might as well be warm.”

“You’d just left the circus?”

“Don’t you know the story?” Clint asked bitterly. Thinking about the last two months made him burn with anger.

Coulson met his eyes and was silent for a moment. “Yes, but just pieces. I know your brother and Trick Shot hurt you over money. I know where you ended up after this and what came later. But you never said you were going south or what you had originally wanted to do.”

Clint laughed and caught himself ripping the napkin into little pieces. “What I wanted to do. . .  Yeah. Well, I wanted to keep warm and I wanted to eat. I wanted to find a job and figure out what the hell to do with myself without B—“ he cut himself off.

This was pointless. Wasted energy. It was Barney taking up space in his head rent-free and he didn’t need that. He shrugged. “I’m sixteen. I’ll get thrown back in the foster system if I get caught and I’ll have to lie about my age and figure out how to forge documents to get a job. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do, so like I said, I might as well be warm.”

Avoiding Coulson’s concerned gaze, he took a long drink and finished off the bottle of water he was working on.  When he stood to throw it away, Stark wandered into the kitchen.

“Hey kid, you’re up!” he said, clapping Clint on the shoulder a little too hard. Clint glared and made his way back to his stool as Tony pulled himself up to sit on the counter near Coulson, who offered his own glare. “Makin’ smoothies?” Tony asked.

Coulson nodded. “Only thing he’s interested in,” he said without looking up from where he was chopping strawberries.

“Cool. Hey, kid. Grab your yogurt and come with me, will you? I’ve got something to share.”

“Stark,” Coulson warned, and Clint sat back to watch the two men. He liked the way Coulson carried himself with authority, and he liked how Stark seemed to flaunt authority with every bone in his body. It reminded him of Old Man Carson and Trick, during the good times. He caught himself grinning a little as Tony protested. 

“What, Agent? The kid needs to relax, right? To chill out, feel normal? I’m going to help!”  He leaned against the counter next to Clint. “I have bows. And arrows. Lots and lots of arrows,” he stage-whispered, looking over his shoulder at Coulson.

Clint looked at Coulson hopefully, the promise of shooting sending a thrill through his body. Shooting would feel awesome. He hadn’t shot since before the hospital, even though he had dragged his bow around with him.

He felt himself leaning over the counter in anticipation of Coulson’s answer, which startled him when he realized he was doing it. He was actually concerned with Coulson’s answer, like he wouldn’t do it if Coulson said no. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Coulson looked at Clint, eyes narrowing. “Okay. For a bit.”

Clint leaned back in his chair with a grin, Tony clapped his hands and Coulson added, “After I make you a smoothie.”

“Okay, but do they really have yogurt in them?” Clint asked, standing. He was pretty sure he hated yogurt.

Tony laughed, and after Coulson handed Clint the biggest plastic glass he’d ever seen filled with strawberry goodness, led Clint to the nearby elevator with a bright, “I’ll bring him back later!”

Clint followed Tony and listened as he explained how he had four or five different types of arrows for Clint to try and heard Coulson yell, “Don’t push it, Clint!”

The ride down to the range was quick, and Clint felt his blood running through his veins, excitement almost palpable. He drank the smoothie, savoring the sugar and creamy goodness, and letting it settle his stomach down a little. He was still tired, he could tell, and when Tony mentioned going for a hamburger after they were done his stomach rolled a little in protest of the idea, but they stepped off the elevator and all he could think of was shooting a bow again.

The range was beautiful, all sleek lines and clean floors and nothing like anywhere Clint had ever shot before. He was used to dust – dusty corn fields and dustier circus tents. Tony led him to a weapons closet, keyed a code in, and turned to Clint with a dramatic wave of his arm as the door slid open to reveal three stunning bows. His eye was drawn to the one in the middle, and with a sharp breath he realized it was the one he’d found lying on the ground next to him when he woke up in New York. He reached a hand out, but he hesitated. This bow was too good.

“Go on, kid. It’s yours anyway,” Tony said.

Clint hesitated and left the bows alone as Tony pressed another code and a panel Clint hadn’t noticed in the wall next to the closet slid open, revealing a row of quivers and a few arm guards. Clint took a deep breath and pulled down a guard. He’d only ever worn one when he practiced, leaving them off for performances, and none of the ones he’d used were as nice as these. He pulled it on and adjusted the straps, and reached for the quiver on the far right.

“Um,” Tony interrupted, reaching out and pushing Clint’s hand down, “Not those.” He grinned sheepishly at Clint and said, “Maybe later? They explode on impact.”

Clint felt his eyes widen and he dropped his arm to his side. “Which ones, then?”

Tony reached across him and pulled down a quiver from one end. “These are standard. You like these best.”

Clint nodded and Tony pulled down the bow he’d seen earlier and held it out. Clint sighed, knowing Tony meant well, but he felt. . . stupid. “I don’t know how to use the compound bow,” he said quietly, not looking at Tony, who seemed to expect Clint to just grab the bow and start shooting.

Tony clearly hadn’t thought of this and his face fell a little.

“Oh,” he said, “I know the basics of how it works but I’ve never shot it. Want me to show you?”

It felt weird that Tony would want to, but Clint wasn’t going to refuse. He nodded and Tony gestured him over to a nearby metal table, laying down a quiver next to the bow. He walked Clint through the basics, and Clint caught on easily. Five minutes later he picked up the bow, turned toward a target, and asked, “Doesn’t anyone else shoot?”

“Nope,” Tony answered. “ _Archery_ range. You’re our archer.”

Clint looked back at him. “You built this whole range just for me?” he asked, trying to keep the uncertainty out of his voice, but failing.

Tony grinned his crazy grin and nodded. “Yep.”

Clint had an odd feeling as he turned to try the bow. He loaded it the way Tony had showed him, but when he went to draw it back, he couldn’t. His arm shook with the tension and he tried again, but he just couldn’t draw it back. He wasn’t strong enough. “Shit,” he mumbled, lowering the bow and avoiding Tony’s gaze.

“Oh,” Tony said. “I hadn’t thought about the draw weight. Want to try one of the other ones? I can get this one adjusted so you can try it later.”

Clint nodded, but he ran into the same problem with the pretty recurve in the closet, too. Clearly he was scrawny compared to his future self and he felt anger bubble in his chest. He really wanted to shoot.

At that moment, Coulson keyed his way into the range and asked how it was going.

“I’m too fucking weak to use them,” he answered, gesturing at the bows.

“I hadn’t thought of draw weight,” Tony added with a grimace.

“It’s okay, Tony,” Clint said quietly. “I wouldn’t have thought of it, either.”

“What about the bow in your room?” Coulson asked, and Clint snapped his gaze over to him. How did he know about that bow? “You told me a while ago that it was yours when you were a kid. Want to try that one?”

Clint shrugged, but he really did want to shoot. Badly.

“Finish your drink and I’ll go get it for you,” Coulson said, turning on his heel and leaving without waiting for an answer. Ten minutes later he was back with the bow, and Clint took it with a mumbled ‘thanks,’ running his hands over it reverently.

He walked over to the shooting gallery and heard Tony press a few buttons on the wall behind him. Five targets set at different distances and heights slid down from the ceiling. Clint grinned back at Tony and Coulson, and then turned, drew the bow, and relaxed. It was perfect and his and he shot five quick arrows, hitting all of the targets dead center on the first try.

It felt magical. He heard Coulson say to Tony “He’s got it,” and he sounded proud, sending a thrill through Clint’s fingers as he kept shooting until the arrows in the quiver ran out.

He turned back to Tony and grinned when he was done. Coulson had left partway through to take a phone call, but Tony looked just as proud as Coulson had earlier.

“Impressive, small one,” he said. “But come through here,” and he led Clint through another door, and Clint just laughed.

He was looking at an obstacle course that had targets spread at intervals throughout. Tony handed him another quiver and said, “Go for it.”

An hour later he was sweating buckets and his arm was shaking, so he finally looked at Tony and said, “I think that’s all I’ve got today.”

As they went back to the first range and stowed the quiver, Tony said, “Wanna go for a hamburger and milkshake?”

The thought of food made his stomach roll again, and after all the exertion on the range, he felt himself pale and his stomach clenched angrily, leaving him breathless.

“Kid, you okay?” he heard Tony say, but it was coming from far away and Clint saw grey spots in front of his eyes. He felt Tony grab his elbow and steer him to a chair, pushing him down and kneeling in front of him. “You gonna puke?” Tony asked.

Clint could only nod, and suck a breath in as Tony shoved a trash can in front of him before he heaved, losing the smoothie from earlier and gagging as he dry heaved long afterward. When he stopped, he was sweating and cold and shaking. Tony offered a towel as the door behind him slid open and Natasha hurried through.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice tense. She took one look at Clint and cussed under her breath. “Come on,” she said after Clint wiped his mouth. “We’re taking you to medical. There’s something wrong.”

Clint couldn’t deny it. It had been three days since he woke in New York City and he’d had part of a hamburger the first night and part of a muffin the next day. Other than the smoothie he’d had the night before and the one he just lost, that was it other than a few bites of the team dinner the second night. He was parched again, too, so he nodded and tried to stand up. He was shaky on his feet, though, and his legs felt like they weighed fifty pounds.

He felt a wave of nausea wash through him as he moved to take a step, and he closed his eyes and tried to breathe deeply. He ended up panting, though, and when he opened his eyes to find Natasha at his elbow, the grey spots turned to tunnel vision and he heard Tony say “fuck” just as the room went dark.

He woke in a hospital room, and felt an IV in his arm. His stomach felt better, though, and he wasn’t as thirsty as he’d been before. He opened his eyes slowly and saw Natasha and Steve sitting in chairs nearby, watching him sleep.

“Hey Clint,” Steve said, standing and moving to the railing of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Natasha stood, too, and stood next to Steve.

“Better,” Clint said, but his voice was rough from sleep. Natasha offered him some water and he cleared his throat. “Better,” he repeated, looking around the room. “What happened?”

“Short version?” Steve answered.

Clint was still pretty tired, so he nodded.

“Whatever the magic is, it’s messing with your system. Sure, it turned you into a teenager, but it’s also interfering with your body,” Steve said.

“Your electrolyte levels were dangerously low,” Natasha added, and she pointed to the IV. “It’s like you can’t stay hydrated, which is why you’re thirsty all the time and probably why food is revolting.”

Clint stayed quiet – his brain kinda stopped when Steve mentioned the magic thing again – and he pulled at the tape around the IV absently. This was too familiar, this hospital atmosphere. “When can I get the fuck out of here?” he said, more harshly than he intended, but he could already feel the walls closing in and he knew that every dream that happened here would be about Barney. He just wanted to get out.

“The doctors said you can go when the IV is finished,” Steve replied, frowning a little. “They want you back here tomorrow for a checkup, though. They’re not sure anything is going to change even though they’ve leveled you out.”

“How long have I been here?” Clint asked. He really did feel better, rested for the first time in, well, in weeks if he was honest with himself.

Natasha smiled at him. “Fifteen hours now.”

“Really?” Clint asked. That was a long time.

“Yeah, and they didn’t even sedate you. Docs said that once they started getting your levels back to normal with the IV, your body just kinda crashed the way it should,” Natasha answered.

“Sleep is good,” Steve added.

“I just want to get out of here,” Clint said, realizing how desperate he probably sounded.

 

They agreed with him, but of course that was when Coulson walked in and said they’d figured out who did this to him. It had been some jerk was from another planet, and upon hearing that, Clint decided to sleep some some more.

He was too tired for this shit.

 

* * *

 

“Ingvar?” Phil repeated after Thor. “You said it wasn’t anyone on Asgard. You said there was no disturbance that Odin was aware of.” He recognized his accusatory tone, but god damn it. This was Clint getting messed with. Again.

Thor, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt as he often did when visiting Midgard, nodded and raised his hands in surrender. “Ingvar is from Vanaheim. Another in the Nine Realms. Not Asgard. Vanaheim is difficult for Heimdall to search, as they are adept at hiding their work from him. It took several tries after failing to find anyone elsewhere.”

They were sitting in Fury’s office, and Phil was exhausted. He’d been sitting in Clint’s room for fourteen hours, watching him sleep the sleep of the dead after collapsing on the range.

He’d collapsed after Phil gave him permission to shoot when he was obviously  undernourished and exhausted. Phil had just wanted what Tony wanted – to distract the kid from the crappy situation.

Phil got to the range just as medics were lifting Clint, so pale and limp, onto a stretcher, and his heart had stopped for a brief moment as he wondered if he’d lost his lover and best friend to another round of magic. Natasha had gripped his arm and said, “He just passed out, Phil. He just passed out,” and he had nodded, breathing again. They followed the medics to SHIELD, and when Doctor Becker came out and explained that they didn’t know anything other than Clint’s body wasn’t regulating itself properly right now, Phil wanted to hit something.  When Thor showed up hours later with a reassuring, “I have found the source,” he wanted to hug him.

Now, after getting called to Fury’s office and leaving a still-sleeping Clint under the careful watch of Natasha and Steve, he was considering hitting again.

“Vanaheim?” Fury asked as Phil clenched his fists.

Thor nodded. “It’s a world of seers – Ingvar is a seer himself. They have not ever ventured to Midgard, though,” he added thoughtfully.

“Can he reverse this?” Phil asked impatiently, and ignored Fury’s raised eyebrow.

Thor sighed, never a good sign. “Odin has sent a party to collect Ingvar and bring him here to try. It may be a few more days, and they have to convince him to come, which may be difficult. The Vanaheim do not venture often from their home.”

“He sure as hell ventured this time,” Fury remarked.

“Wait,” Phil interrupted, some of Thor’s words sinking in a bit more. “You said they’re seers. That’s not spell-casting. How do you know it was him?”

Thor looked at Phil and nodded. “They do not often use power beyond seeing, this is true. But Heimdall found him, and he was practicing at his home. They are honorable people and he has already responded to Odin’s missive that he did do this. Upon some investigation we’ve learned that this particular seer is also interested in changing and directing the future, something considered very dangerous. Not many of them try it for this reason.”

“And he decided to try it on Clint? Here?” Phil asked. “In the middle of a robot attack?”

Thor looked sheepish. “Well, after Loki’s attack, some are just recognizing the potential of this place. Also, I think the robots were simply a distraction.”

“Potential?” Fury replied. “Not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Father has already been calling on the leaders of the other realms to come to some agreement about Midgard with those who will listen. The Vanaheim are considered to be on that list. Father thinks this one seer is unique.”

“He wanted to change Clint’s future?” Phil mused, looking over at Nick, who shook his head, resigned.

Thor frowned. “He may have known about him through the news of Loki and the Chitauri attack, and he may be attempting to help make amends for what Loki did.”

“By giving him a different future,” Phil said, wondering out loud.

“Yes,” Thor replied. “That is my thought.”

“Maybe he just knew he was an Avenger and wanted to screw with him,” Phil proposed.

“We’ll just have to wait and talk to him. Coulson, are you taking Barton back to the Tower?” Fury asked.

Phil nodded. “Yes. I’ve got a diet plan from Dr. Becker and he wants Clint to come back each day for a checkup until he levels out.”

“I will return to my father in order to escort Ingvar here when he is found,” Thor said.

“Thank you,” Phil replied, and Thor nodded and left the office, shutting the door behind him.

Phil ran his hand over his face and Fury sighed loudly.

“God damn, this is weird,” Fury said, reaching into his desk and pulling out to glasses. He filled them partway with scotch he pulled from his bottom drawer and handed one to Phil.

Phil just nodded and took a sip, closing his eyes against the burn in his throat.

“You holding up okay, Phil?” Nick asked, and Phil felt the shift from commander to friend that always happened when the scotch came out.

Phil chuckled and shook his head. “No?” he answered, looking up at the ceiling.

“Didn’t figure. How’s Barton?”

“He’s not Barton, but he is, and it’s really weird.   I just want to get this figured out because it hurts to see him so disoriented.” Phil kept looking up, hearing the strain in his own voice.

“He’s tough, Phil. You know that.”

“He’s vulnerable and out of place and all these people are throwing him off-kilter.” He paused and added, “Not in a bad way, necessarily. I think he likes Stark and Natasha.”

“And you? What does he think of you?” Nick said, his voice low.

Phil sighed. “He trusts me. Which is good. He let me sleep on his couch.” Phil dropped his head and met Nick’s gaze. “I don’t think he’d do that by the time I met him.”

“No. He’s young and new at getting by on his own, isn’t he?”

“God, Nick, have you seen him since this happened?”

“At the first once-over in medical, yeah. He’s . . . different.”

“He’s sixteen and he probably got out of the hospital a month ago after recovering from a knife wound inflicted by his own brother. You should’ve seen him when Tony offered to take him to the shooting range. _Everything’s_ written on his face right now. That’s not Clint.”

Phil tried to stifle a yawn and Nick chuckled.

“You need some sleep. Get him back to the Tower and let the others take care of him for a while. Have him play video games or do crossword puzzles while you nap,” Nick said, finishing his drink and leaning back in his char. “I’ll call as soon as Thor shows up with this idiot he’s looking for.”

Phil downed the rest of his scotch and stood, setting the glass on the desk. “Right. Thanks,” he said, gesturing at the glass.

“If I wasn’t sending you off to be responsible for a teenager I’d offer you another,” Nick said with a shrug.

Phil just groaned and waved exasperatedly as he left the office, and he headed down to medical to see how Clint was doing. He hoped he’d wake up soon so he could take him back to the Tower and get that nap Nick insisted he get. It was sounding really good right now.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets some help with perspective from Bruce and Phil tries to get some perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the really slow updating. I've been very busy at work and with RL in general. Thanks for your patience, and thanks for the comments and encouragement! Thanks, also, to lexxorz for outstanding beta help.

Clint woke to the sound of typing and files shifting, and he felt rested. More rested, anyway. He took a deep breath and felt the soreness that had been pulling on his chest was gone. He opened his eyes and saw Coulson nearby, shoving files into a briefcase. His hair was messy, his tie was gone, and his shirt was unbuttoned a few buttons. He looked up at Clint with a smile, but his eyes were lined with fatigue. “Welcome back,” he said.

“How long have I been out?” Clint asked, swallowing against the dry mouth that had set in.

Coulson handed him a cup of water. “Seven more hours since you were last awake.”

“Did the aliens show up?”

“You heard that bit?”

“You were talking to me about a guy from another planet, weren’t you?” Clint asked, handing the now-empty cup back and gesturing for a refill.

“I wasn’t sure if you had heard me or if you were in the process of passing out.”

“I went back to sleep because you said ‘from another planet.’ I wasn’t in the mood.”

“Are you in the mood now?” Phil asked as Clint downed a second cup of water.

Clint took a moment to think. Aliens, robots, magic. “I thought the circus was weird,” he said.

“It probably was.”

Clint laughed. He liked Phil. He didn’t take anyone’s shit, it seemed, but he didn’t look down on Clint, either. Clint was used to people looking down on him or using him, so Phil Coulson was a change for the better. The other grownups Clint had met here seemed like that, too. Weird. Clint knew that they were all just biding time until they could get grownup Clint back, but he’d figured out they weren’t going to hurt him. “So…..an alien cast a spell on me?” Clint asked.

Phil sighed and leaned back in his chair. “It would seem so. A couple of years ago we had our first encounter with an alien – his name was Thor and he turned out to be a pretty good guy.

“He’s an Avenger now, right?” Clint interrupted. At Phil’s surprise look he added, “Natasha gave me a rundown of the team. Said his brother’s a real jerk, though.”

Phil’s gaze darkened. “Yes. And not all of our encounters with aliens have been good. The man they say did this to you is from a place called Vanaheim.”

“Can he fix it? Or can someone make him fix it?”

“We’re going to get him to try. Thor has gone to bring him here so he can resolve this.”

Clint nodded and looked away. He was definitely temporary. They didn’t need or want him around, despite how nice they were being. “When can I get out of here,” he asked, trying to keep his voice even. He saw Phil’s eyes narrow a bit.

“As soon as the doctor can give you a once-over,” Phil answered. “Are you hungry?”

Clint considered it. “No. The thought of food isn’t making me sick, though, so that’s good.”

“I’ll go get the doctor.”

An hour later, Clint was back at Stark Tower and Natasha met them in the lobby. “Think you slept enough, Barton?” she asked with a sly smile. He just shrugged, though, and the smile dropped off her face as she shifted her gaze to Phil. “I’ve got him for a while, Phil,” she said as they all stepped onto the elevator.

Phil started to protest and then closed his mouth and nodded.

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Don’t need a babysitter.”

“Stark’s lining up a movie afternoon for you,” Natasha said. “Figured you wouldn’t want to sleep anymore. He was going to order pizza but I told him to hold off.”

Clint took a deep breath and nodded. “Thanks.”

She shrugged. “I think he’s making more smoothies, instead.”

Phil laughed as the elevator opened to the main floor.

“Get some sleep, Phil,” Natasha said as she pulled Clint off the elevator, and Phil gave her a tired salute as the door closed.

Clint found himself staring at the elevator doors after they shut. “Is he okay?” he asked Natasha.

She fixed him with a narrow gaze. “He hasn’t slept since you collapsed on the range.”

Clint swallowed the odd feeling of being looked after that was so rare for him and said, “Oh.” He followed Natasha to the kitchen when she turned on her heel and walked away. He’d been at the hospital for more than a day. No wonder Phil looked like crap.

Another smoothie (orange, this time) and a strange movie about robots using people as batteries later, Clint was sitting on the couch between Steve and Tony when a guy with crazy brown hair and rumpled clothes wandered in.

“Bruce!” Tony called.

Clint remembered him from dinner the first night, and Natasha had explained that he turned into a giant, green monster when he got mad. Clint had lots of practice not making people mad, so he figured he’d be okay around him. Natasha said he was safe, mostly. At first glance, Bruce didn’t look like someone who could get mad, all rumpled brown shirt and quiet and ducking his head. Clint sat up from where he’d laid down on the couch, though, and Bruce smiled at him and said hello. Clint met his eyes and saw for himself that first glances could be wrong; Banner’s eyes were some of the deepest and guarded he’d ever seen.

“How’re you feeling, Clint?” he asked, sitting down in a leather armchair.

Clint shrugged. “Okay. Better than before.”

“Good.”

“Bruce,” Tony said, sitting on the arm of the chair Bruce was using, “Clint’s bored.”

“No, I’m not,” Clint replied. “I just watched a pretty good movie. I bet you have some more.”

It was nice hanging out with a rich guy. He was actually kind of pissed that food sounded so awful to him, seeing as he probably could’ve got Tony to get him anything. He’d always wanted to try lobster. So food would’ve been great, but just being in this tower was way cool. The movie screen was _huge_ and it sounded amazing – Clint had only ever snuck into old, run-down theaters in backwater Midwest towns and this sound was better than those, plus he got to crash out on a plush leather couch with an orange smoothie. He wasn’t bored.

“Do you play chess?” Bruce asked, twirling a pen absently in his hand.

Clint cocked his head. Chess might mean conversation. He didn’t really feel like talking, but he loved to play chess. He grinned at the thought of the fortune teller who had taught him. She and Clint had played whenever he could sneak away from Barney and his dumb gang of other kids, between practice in the morning and rehearsal early in the afternoon.

 So even though he didn’t feel like talking, he said ‘sure’ and followed Bruce to his apartment and into his den. It was a small room with only lamps to light it, and an olive-colored cloth couch with deep red accents against a beige wall. In front of the couch there was a cherry coffee table with a small rock fountain bubbling on it. The room even smelled calm, like an open road on a summer day, and Clint felt his shoulders relaxed as he took in the rest of the room. Under the window in the corner there were two wing-backed chairs with a small table between them, and the wooden chess set sat on top.

Bruce gestured to a chair and Clint sat down.

“You’re going to kick my butt,” Clint said.

Bruce smiled and shrugged. “Maybe.”

They began to play, and Clint settled into trying to keep up. Just as he figured, Banner was much better, but he didn’t talk much, and the first game passed in silence peppered with an occasional ‘see what I did there?’ from Bruce. The second game found Clint keeping up a little better.

“You’re pretty good,” Bruce said as he leaned back in his chair.

“For a punk kid?”

Bruce laughed. “Yeah. For a punk kid.”

“Old lady at the circus taught me,” Clint offered. “We used to play a lot. Wasn’t much to do between shows.”

“Did you like the circus?”

“I was good at performing,” Clint answered, and for a moment he was back in the ring, seeing all the little kids grinning up at him as he shot a fire arrow into a tiny target held by another performer.  “I liked it sometimes.”

Bruce sat quietly for a moment, and Clint leaned forward in his chair. This just didn’t really add up for him. “You’re really the same guy who turns into the Hulk and smashes things?”

Bruce nodded, unperturbed by the question. “Yeah, I am that guy. It’s weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Clint replied, and he thought about how Natasha had told him that the Hulk “broke Harlem” once and attacked her on the Helicarrier. That this guy, the same guy, could sit here and play chess and drink tea? “It doesn’t match up.”

“Match up?”

“I mean, you seem so . . . nice?”

Bruce laughed. “I suppose.” He looked at Clint with a knowing look. “You end up being a nice guy, too, you know.”

Clint looked away. “I can’t figure it out,” he said.

“How you can be a nice guy but hurt people for your job?”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s just that everyone I’ve met before was one or the other – they were nice or they hurt people. None of you people line up like that. I tried not to hurt people, but I did anyway.” He shuddered as he remembered the dead look of the man in the alley a few days ago. He closed his eyes.

“Clint.”

Clint opened his eyes and Banner was looking at him with what Clint imagined was a fatherly gaze. “What?” came out more defiantly than he intended.

“You’re not a killer. Not the way you think you are.”

“But I kill.”

“Yes. And so do I, and so does Tony, and Natasha, and Steve, and even Coulson. But we’re not killers.”

Clint stood from his chair and moved to the window. This was a different time, and Bruce knew a different him. “You like chess?”

“Yes,” Bruce answered, standing next to him.

“And Tony likes science, and Natasha likes to dance, Steve likes to draw, and Coulson likes to read,” Clint said, and he was beginning to understand these people a little more.

“And you?” Bruce said, turning to face him.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand how I get pulled into this group.”

“Coulson,” Bruce said softly, with a small smile.

Clint nodded. Coulson was the key, and Clint knew it. “He recruited me.”

“Yes. And I think you were the first one he probably had in mind for the Avengers, but that’s just my opinion.”

Clint nodded. “You want to play one more game?”

* * *

 

 Phil let himself into his room at the Tower, a place Tony prepared for him ‘just in case he was too wiped to make it home after a mission’ and a place he and Clint used quite a lot when the Avengers were busy. It was small, but it still felt empty without Clint. Phil stripped off his jacket and hung it in the closet, deposited his shoes next to the bed, and peeled his pants and shirt off, groaning out loud at how much effort that simple act took. He was miserable.

He managed to brush his teeth, which felt glorious after two days at SHIELD, and wash his face. Then he crawled under his covers, put some jazz music on the stereo, and lay there, adjusting the covers, fluffing the pillow, changing the music, and generally not falling asleep. He sighed, finally, and went to the kitchenette and fixed a cup of herbal tea. He drank it as he leaned against his headboard looking at a picture of him and Clint.

Jasper had snapped it after a long mission once, as Clint leaned into Phil’s shoulder on the flight back to headquarters, both of them too tired to snarl at Jasper, both of them falling asleep on each other. Phil loved it, Clint’s hair mussed and streaks of dirt on his cheek, Phil’s tie loosened and dirt smudging him, too. It spoke of trust, and it made Phil feel good to look at it now. Clint trusted him right now, and Clint was vulnerable. Phil needed to sleep so he could take care of things. So he set his cup on his night stand and tried again, falling asleep in less than a minute this time.

He woke feeling rested, and since his phone hadn’t rung and Jarvis hadn’t woken him, he figured things were calm enough for him to take a shower. When he finished and grabbed a cup of coffee, he sipped it as he left his room.

“Jarvis, where is Clint at the moment?”

“Mr. Barton is in Dr. Banner’s quarters, sir.”

“Dr. Banner’s quarters?” Phil replied.

“Yes, sir. He’s been there for about six hours now.”

Phil made his way to Bruce’s door, but before he could knock, Bruce opened the door, smiling.

“Come on in,” he said, his voice purposefully quiet.

Phil followed Bruce into his apartment and had to stifle a chuckle when Bruce led Phil to his den and he saw Clint sprawled face-down on the couch, his arm dangling down to the floor. Bruce pulled Phil back and they went to his kitchen, where he poured Phil a cup of tea. “He’s been asleep a long time,” Bruce said.

“He’s comfortable, that’s for sure.”

“He played a few games of chess with me, and then we sat and talked a bit and he just sort of passed out on the couch.”

“He needs it. Did he eat anything? “

“No. He had some tea, though.” Bruce paused before adding, “He’s pretty good at chess already.”

“You guys play pretty regularly don’t you?” Phil asked, remembering a few late nights when Clint returned home and reported getting his butt handed to him by Bruce.

“Yeah. It’s certainly odd talking to a younger version. Is there any word on the magic?”

“No. I need to take him back to SHIELD medical, though. The doctor wants to make sure he’s evening out.”

“Do you mind if I wake him?” Bruce asked, rubbing the back of his neck a little sheepishly.

Phil kind of wanted to hug Bruce, but instead he just grinned and nodded. It warmed Phil to see how everyone was falling into the protective pattern with this young Clint. Even now, watching Bruce kneel down next to the couch and speak softly to Clint, watching Clint blink sleepily and grin at Bruce, Phil was surprised at how clearly the adult Clint had insinuated himself into all of their lives.

An hour later, Phil and Clint were at SHIELD and Clint was getting a once-over by the doctor.

“Here’s a small menu, Clint,” the doctor said as Clint put his shirt back on. Phil had been trying hard not to stare at Clint during the exam, not because of anything sexual, but because he could clearly see which scars were old ones and which he’d acquire later. Phil knew some of their stories, but not all of them, and the fresh scar on his upper chest made Phil shudder. It was a sign of betrayal, and everything Clint had done since Phil and Natasha had dragged him back to the Tower that first night was a sign of trust. Phil wondered what Clint’s life would have been like if he’d found someone to trust as soon after Barney’s betrayal the first time around.

“I want you to choose two things and try to eat. Smoothies are good for you, but it’s not all you need.”

Phil watched as Clint took in his choices and scowled up at the doctor.

“None of it sounds good.”

“Pick two anyway, Clint,” the doctor replied, making some notes on his clipboard.

Clint looked back down and sighed. “Peanut butter and jelly and tomato soup. I guess.”

A few minutes later Clint was eating without enthusiasm, and Phil watched him out of the corner of his eye as he worked on a report. He was struck again at how physically different Clint looked, his thin face and longer hair contrasting with the settled and scarred face and short hair of adulthood. His eyes were different, too. They were constantly moving, taking in the room and being on guard, and that hadn’t changed as he’d become an adult. Phil knew this was from the years of abuse and looking out for himself in his youth, but having it confirmed left Phil feeling hollow and sad. But despite their familiar movement, Clint’s eyes were brighter, less guarded, and reminded Phil of some of the junior agents he’d worked with over the years.

“What?” Clint asked suddenly around a mouthful of sandwich.

Phil gave him an embarrassed grin, caught staring. “Just wondering how you’re feeling.”

Clint just shrugged and took another bite.

Phil’s phone rang and he was grateful for the distraction. “Coulson.”

“Thor and Ingvar just showed up at the Tower,” Natasha replied tersely.

Phil’s heart skipped a beat and he looked at Clint. “He’s going to finish eating and then we’ll be over.” He hung up and Clint was looking at him quizzically. “The alien who did this to you is at the Tower waiting,” Phil said, and Clint swallowed heavily and cast his eyes to the floor. “Clint, look at me.” When Clint looked up his eyes were fearful for a second before he blinked it away and gazed at Phil in defiance. “Whatever happens, we’ll all look out for you. No matter what.”

And it was true, but Phil could only think of two solutions to this problem, and neither were going to be easy on the young man sitting before him.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Choices are laid out and considered from several angles. None of them are easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a quicker update - the last will probably be late next week thanks to RL. I appreciate everyone's patience and kind words! Thanks for reading! Thanks, too, to my awesome beta, lexxorz.

Clint saw a man sitting on the couch of the Tower lounge. The man’s eyes were a crystal-clear green and he had pitch black hair. He stood and was tall, thin, wore loose, silk clothing and Clint could practically feel power radiating from him.

“This is Ingvar, of Vanaheim,” Thor said, standing to greet Coulson and Clint as they came off the elevator.

Clint kept his mouth shut, not trusting himself to say anything useful, but he nodded a greeting and crossed his arms over his chest. Coulson put a hand out and shook the man’s hand, introducing Clint and himself. For a moment, they stood in awkward silence, until Tony bounded into the room.

“Great! Alien magician-guy, without the berating we all want to do to you, can you just fix Clint for us?”

Clint clenched his arms tighter and watched the alien carefully. Like Thor, the guy looked human, but when Clint watched his eyes, which darted from Tony to Clint, he felt something different. Thor’s eyes were kind, deep, welcoming, but this man was evaluating, calculating. Clint knew calculating. ‘Fix him,’ Tony had said, as if Clint were standing here broken. He supposed he was, but having Ingvar in the room, perhaps ready to change Clint back with a wave of a wand or something, sent a small thread of fear through Clint’s body.

As if he had read Clint’s thoughts, Ingvar spoke, his voice soft and surprisingly gentle. “I thought perhaps I had already fixed him,” he said in a slight European-sounding accent, staring at Clint with a hard gaze.

Coulson spoke up. “Fix is the wrong word. Can you reverse your spell?”

Coulson’s calm voice and kind words loosened some of the tension in Clint’s arms, but when the alien answered, “It is not a simple reversal, and it comes with a condition,” Clint wanted to throw something.

“What gives you the right –“ Tony started, but Ingvar interrupted.

“I needed a test subject and he had been wronged by the Asgardian, Loki. I needed to know if I could change someone so completely that they would forget their future, and remain intact. Could I take them back to a point and change their body and mind so that they returned to where they started with no ill-effects? It is done. He has been changed successfully.”

“His body’s not adjusting,” Phil stated.

“It is. I can tell that his system is settling down, and that was the key. Did he not eat something earlier? Is he not more rested now? The trauma of the change is psychological at this point, and will resolve,” Ingvar said, looking at Phil with a measure of arrogance.

Natasha had been watching from a doorway, but now she moved to stand next to Clint. He could feel her warmth and that, too, settled him a bit. He looked at her and took a deep breath. “So can you reverse it or not?” he asked, running a hand through his hair and trying to appear calm.

Ingvar didn’t answer right away; instead, he stepped closer to Clint and looked at him intently. His green eyes seemed bottomless, his pupils a little bigger than they should be. He stared into Clint’s eyes, and Clint tried not to flinch or look away. If this was a challenge, he would accept it.

“Do you _want_ it reversed?” Ingvar asked slowly.

Clint couldn’t answer right away. Want? Did he _want_ it reversed?

“Of course he does,” Tony blurted out, but Bruce, who had come in a moment ago, put a hand on Tony’s elbow and pulled him back a little, as if he were holding back a small dog.

Ingvar chuckled mirthlessly. “Do you?” he asked Clint again. “I’ve made you young again. You have a whole life ahead of you, and you’re in a much better place than when you were actually sixteen years of age. I’ve seen your path, how you got here before. What do you think would happen to you if stayed young now? Would you be abandoned by those you trust like you were before? Would you lose yourself in survival, hoping someone like him,” he said, pointing at Coulson, “would find you and rescue you? Or would these friends look after you? Guide you and provide for you like you never had before? Give you a chance you never knew?”

There was silence, and then Phil said, “We would. Of course.” He was looking at Clint, and Clint felt unmoored by the fondness and dash of sadness in his eyes. Of course they’d look after him? There was no ‘of course’ about it in Clint’s eyes, but as he looked around at Natasha and the others, he saw that they all agreed.

Clint wouldn’t be on his own again. He wouldn’t be left out in the cold by someone he thought he could trust with his life.  He wouldn’t be expected to fend for himself.

“That’s the condition,” Ingvar said, sitting down on the couch again. “If the young man actually wishes to be an adult again, I will reverse it. But it will only work if he actually desires it to work. If he wishes to remain young, he will stay that way.”

“Is there a time limit?” Bruce asked, challenging Ingvar.

He shrugged. “Actually, yes. There is a ‘settling in’ phase of the spell, but once that ends, the spell is permanent, regardless of what anyone wishes.”

“When?” Clint asked, fear creeping into his stomach.

“Sundown tonight.”

“And you weren’t going to tell us about this?” Natasha asked.

Ingvar met her steely gaze. “This young man took a very, very hard path to get to where he is as an adult. After all of that difficulty, an Asgardian with delusions of grandeur brainwashed him, and when I intervened he was _still_ reeling from that. None of that would happen here. He could grow up supported, loved, cared for, and none of that difficulty would come to pass. It didn’t occur to me that he would need a choice.”

Everyone was silent, their eyes on Clint. A choice. He’d never really had choices. His life had been about putting one foot in front of the other, keeping himself fed and clothed and out of trouble, and he was admittedly bad at the last bit. He looked around at the faces of the people who clearly cared about him, but it didn’t make the right choice magically appear. It only made him feel worse, pressured. He knew what they wanted him to do, who they wanted him to be. He looked at the floor. “Can I go to my room?” he mumbled toward Coulson.

“Sure,” Coulson answered quickly, and Clint looked up at him and saw a flash of doubt cross his face. It was gone quickly and replaced by a smile. “I’ll walk you up.”

Clint didn’t look at anyone else as he got in the elevator and let Coulson push the button for his floor. They rode in silence, but when Clint opened the door to his apartment, Coulson put his hand on Clint’s arm.

“Listen,” he said, and Clint met his gaze. “We _will_ take care of you. This is a second chance. You can stay here, go to school, get a job, travel, whatever you want. We’ll all watch out for you.”

Clint cocked his head and thought for a moment. “You really would?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Clint saw something in Coulson’s eyes that he had seen hints of before, and he heard something in Coulson’s voice; his eyes were unguarded, and his voice was filled with, no. Clint must be wrong. He pulled a breath in and thought back over the last few days, though. “Can I ask you a question?” Coulson stepped back and nodded, looking apprehensive. “That Army t-shirt. Is it yours?”

Coulson looked surprised, but he offered a small smile. “Yes.”

Clint thought about the apartment itself and the mostly empty refrigerator and mostly empty closet. “I don’t stay here very much, do I?”

“No.”                          

It clicked for Clint, then, a feeling he’d had since he’d first seen that photograph of him and Coulson on his nightstand, and he felt like someone knocked the breath out of him. He was sixteen, he knew what he liked in terms of sex, though he’d had to be careful about it and only had a couple experiences to look back on as good. But when he looked at Coulson now, when he thought about the way the man calmed him, hovered over him like Clint was going vanish, but was careful about not touching Clint at all, it clicked.

Coulson seemed to know what had happened. “Clint,” he said, uncertain but careful, like Clint was a spooked lion at the circus.

“You’re my boyfriend,” Clint said, and it filled the silence between them like quicksand, sucking the air out of his lungs and making him shake. He stared at Coulson for a moment, then backed into his apartment and threw himself down on his couch.

Coulson stood, unmoving, outside the door. “Clint, it doesn’t change anything. Your choice is still yours to make.”

“It changes everything,” Clint said, running his hands down his face. He looked up at Coulson, seeing fear written across his face. “How long?” Clint asked.

“Four years.”

Clint looked up at him, incredulous. “You’re crazy.”

Coulson shrugged and came over and sat down next to him. “We both have a little of that going on,” he answered, giving Clint a grin. “It works for us.”

Clint just sat for a minute, ‘four years’ running through his mind. He couldn’t believe it.

Coulson asked, “Did you know you liked men?”

Clint nodded. “I like men and women. I grew up in the circus. I figured things out pretty early. Had to be careful about the guys, though. People are weird about that.” He thought about tall, blonde Alex and stolen kisses and hands in the dark filled with pleasure before Trick caught them and beat Clint to a pulp for it.  Alex had left without saying goodbye. Clint thought about short, auburn Steph and making out in the rigging after the shows and laughing and dancing around a campfire. It never went further, but it felt good.

“It doesn’t change things,” Coulson said, breaking into his thoughts more firmly this time. “This is a second chance for you. You can grow up surrounded by love instead of anger, and you’d have all the opportunities in the world with all of us to help.”

Clint leaned back on the plush couch. He ended up here. As an adult, as a result of his shitty life he still ended up here, in a relationship for four years with a kind, handsome man and part of an elite fighting team living in a modern-day mansion. He sat wondering what the chances of that happening again were.

How likely was he to fuck up a second chance?

…Pretty damned likely, in his opinion.

* * *

 

 Phil watched Clint think, watched his eyes, expressive and clear and showing every emotion he seemed to go through. Phil saw confusion, disbelief, fear, anger, and longing brush over Clint’s face, and Phil felt every one of them in his own chest, too. His stomach was churning, and he wanted to tell Clint what to do. He knew he could, at least, influence him. He was doing that with every word. But he could _sell_ it. He could sell the life they had, could take advantage of the instability that has filled Clint’s days up until this moment and sell it. He’s sure.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

The prospect of Clint Barton taking on the world with a group of loving supporters who would never hurt him? It was dizzying despite its price. Even when Phil first met Clint he could tell how smart he was, and the years with SHIELD, while they didn’t give Clint a standard education, certainly brought his natural intelligence to light. Tony could hire tutors to catch him up, Bruce could mentor him, and Steve and Natasha would do whatever they could to help nurture him as well. SHIELD would always be an _option_ , but Clint could do whatever he wanted with his life instead of having his life thrust upon him violently.

Who wouldn’t recommend that? Who wouldn’t insist?

Yet, insisting on that would wreck Phil’s life. He didn’t know if he could be around anymore if Clint chose to remain young. The hole left by Phil’s lover might be too raw, the subtle reminders every time he looked at this young Clint not subtle enough. From time to time they’d talked of getting married, sometimes joking, sometimes not. Losing that, well, Phil envisioned burying himself at work, making sure Clint had what he needed but letting the others take care of him. Surely Phil would pull away and be unable to be around the boy who would shatter his heart with the correct choice.

He stood from the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m going to leave you alone with this for a bit, okay?” He needed to leave before he tried to sell Clint on adulthood. He was holding back, but the longer he stared at the handsome boy who would become his Clint, the boy who looked adorable but wrong, he would try to sell it. He couldn’t stay.

He stepped away from the couch, but Clint stood, too, and said, “Wait.” Phil turned back to him and Clint’s gaze was hard, curious, and he held himself taut.

“We dated for four years?” he asked again.

“Yes.”

“We ended up sleeping together and living together?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Clint asked, and Phil heard the familiar ring of insecurity that he’d chipped away at over all the years he’d known Clint. At this moment, in this room, that insecurity encased Clint like amber.

Phil took a deep breath and tried to smile. “Because you grow into someone I respect more than anyone in the world. Because you grow into someone who sees me like no one else has ever seen me, and because you’re kind and fun and handsome.”

And suddenly, Phil’s throat tightened and his eyes stung, so he turned and left the room. He tried to gather himself enough to turn and tell Clint he’d have Natasha come check on him soon. But he couldn’t find his voice, so he just left.

He took the elevator to the roof and threw himself into one of the chairs that they kept up there for Clint and anyone else who needed space. He could see the city spread below him, but he clenched his eyes shut, trying to even out his haggard breathing.

When Natasha laid her hand on his shoulder he didn’t flinch, but he opened his eyes and looked up at her concerned face. “Just needed some air,” he said, failing miserably to keep his voice even.

She nodded and sat down next to him, and when she started rubbing his back, he leaned into her touch, laying his head on her shoulder. She sighed and pressed a kiss into his hair.

“This qualifies as awful, right?” she said gently.

He huffed and buried his head further into her neck. “Yes.”

“What _we_ want isn’t best for him,” she whispered, and Phil realized that as hard as it was on him, it was just as hard on her.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “He’s happy with us, so how is that bad?”

“I’d choose a different life.”

And Phil knew that was true. Her pain was unlike anyone else’s, and it was still there, tempered by Clint and Phil and the others, but not gone. Clint’s pain had been diminished by his life at SHIELD, but hers had simply been painted over. He looked up at her. “I know, but – “

“He’s happy with us,” she finished for him and he smiled.

“He figured out that we’re together,” Phil said, laying his head back down on her shoulder.

“Was he okay with it?”

“He said I was crazy.”

“Ever the self-deprecating one,” she said with a chuckle. “That might help our chances, though. He likes you.”

“It shouldn’t affect anything. I told him so.”

“But it might.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Phil straightened up and stood. “He needs to choose soon. We should go.”

She stood and pulled him into a hug, startling him at first, but he melted into her strong embrace after a moment and held her tight, this friend who stood to lose her only brother. They held on for a long time before she let go and headed down to Clint’s room to get him. Phil stayed on the elevator and went back to join the others.

They were all sitting in the common room, and no one said a word as Phil moved silently from the elevator to an empty chair near the couch.

He sat down, and waited.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to lexxorz, whose insight and beta goodness made this last chapter a ton stronger. Thanks for anyone still reading for your patience, too. RL really got in the way of this one. I hope the resolution works for everyone!

Clint curled into a ball on the plush couch in his apartment after Coulson vanished with fear in his eyes. He pulled his arms around his knees, running his hands over the firm threads of his jeans, rubbing them and feeling the muscles under the fabric tighten as he pulled his legs to his chest. He squeezed his arms and his knees press into his chest, the muscles in his legs pulling, stretching, burning. He let out a heavy sigh and clenched his eyes shut for a moment.

He was an adult. Even now, as a sixteen year-old, he was an adult who had been making his own choices and keeping himself together for a long time, ever since getting his headliner act, really. He hadn’t had much help.

Here, though, in this place, Clint had obviously found help. A chuckle escaped his throat and he threw his head toward the ceiling, shaking it. Dating an ultra-competent, grounded, successful, kind, good-looking guy who said he’d loved Clint for four years. Living in a tower owned by a quirky and kind billionaire, friends with superheroes who were also grounded and clearly good people for about a year.

How the fuck did he _manage_ this?

More importantly, how could he manage to keep it? He would be throwing so much away if he stayed young. He’d gain certain things, sure. Maybe he’d end up looking less rough than the guy in that photo by his bed, maybe he’d go to school, find a good-looking, stable guy or girl to spend his life with, and be safer than he was before.

But maybe not. Who knew what staying here would be like? Life was kind of a bitch overall, so who knew what he’d gain? Maybe he’d screw up whatever trust these people seemed willing to extend and they’d throw him out on his ass and he’d be right back where he started? Maybe he’d get scared and just run? He didn’t exactly have a track record of making smart choices; just because these kind people were around to help didn’t mean he wouldn’t screw it up like usual.

He looked over as Natasha knocked on his door and stuck her head in, pulling him from his reverie. Her eyes looked tired, her hair a little more disheveled than Clint had seen it before, but she smiled, and said, “Hey. It’s time you told that asshole downstairs what you want him to do with you.”

Clint didn’t move from the couch.

Natasha crossed her arms, and lowered her chin, and Clint was overwhelmed at how, dressed in black slacks and a green marbled sweater, she looked like a portrait framed by the door. He wondered what they really were to each other. “I’m not one to give you advice, Barton, but you look like you’re staying where you are.”

He looked at her, saw her working to be neutral, and figured if a punk like him could see her working, she must be really thrown off her game by all this.  He’d better get it over for everyone so they could at least get some god damned rest. He sighed and stood, stretching a little. “I’m coming down.” She just held his gaze for a moment and then led him to the elevator.

He rubbed his face as the door shut in front of him, and glanced over at Natasha. She was openly watching him, a glint in her eyes. “What?” he asked.

She shrugged. “People don’t change all that much over the years, is all,” she answered, looking a little smug.

He gave her a grin. “I’m prettier this way.” She just smiled at him and he sighed. Grownups were so weird. The doors opened to the common room floor and Clint wanted to shrink back into the elevator walls. Everyone snapped their gaze to him and his nerves must have shown because Natasha gently tugged his elbow to get him to follow her out to the living room.

Coulson was hunched into a corner of the couch but he stood up now, trying to give Clint a reassuring smile. It came out hollow instead, but Clint didn’t blame him. For all he knew he was about to lose his lover to a teenager. Clint blew through puffed cheeks and straightened up himself, striding over as confidently as he could to the alien sitting at the wooden dining table. He knew what he was going to say and he needed to do it without any chance of being interrupted or held up, or he might back out. He might take the golden opportunity dangling in front of him, the chance no one had ever given him before, and the support he’d never had.

But he couldn’t. He just. . . couldn’t. “Change me back. Now,” he said, sparing a glance out the window to see the afternoon sun beginning to wane.

The alien stood up gracefully from the table, gazing up and down Clint’s body deliberately and with a hint of disappointment in his eyes. “Are you certain?” he asked. “This is a chance you never had. You could have a better life.” He paused and took a step closer. “You deserve a better life, it seems.”

Clint stepped away from him and shook his head. “No. Do it. Now. Make me who I was before and get it right. This is my life and I want it back,” he said, sweeping his hand toward his teammates and friends.

“Clint,” Coulson said. “Are you sure?”

Clint wasn’t going to explain himself. If his grown up self could find any insight later, he could share it with his lover, but not now. Now Clint just wanted to get this over. He was already starting to lose his nerve and seeing the uncertainty that filled Coulson’s eyes didn’t help. He saw what he’d built for himself in those eyes. He wanted it back, but hesitation wasn’t going to help. “Do. It.” he said, ignoring Coulson.

Ingvar nodded once and pulled a small, glowing sphere from his robe. It was green, and it seemed that when Clint looked at it his eyes just slid away from it, like it was slippery. The others gathered around Ingvar in a tight circle, except for Banner, who stepped cautiously toward the door to the stairwell. Clint took a deep breath and met Ingvar’s gaze. He wanted to ask if it would hurt, but that would waste time that was starting to strangle Clint like a jealous lover.

Ingvar nodded once, looked at Thor, and then held the small orb above his head. He closed his eyes and muttered something in a language Clint didn’t know, and the orb glowed brighter and brighter. Clint wanted to shout ‘stop!’ and duck away, more than he’d ever wanted to run in his pathetic life, but he planted his feet and straightened, staring at the light. When it flashed as bright as a sun he heard a thunderous boom, felt a sharp pain in his head, and felt his knees give out as darkness rushed to greet him as quickly as the floor.

* * *

 

Phil watched the young, smooth-faced Clint Barton step confidently toward the alien, his hands hanging loosely next to his jeans and his chin held high. Despite this confidence, Phil wanted to grab Clint and drag him away, back to the elevator, back to his room where he could watch the sun go down so Clint could start a new life, one without so much violence and fear.

But he didn’t. He let his own cowardice win and watched Clint cross the room, heard his demand for his own life back, and saw him raise his chin to meet his fate. He was so proud of this scared young man, he had to clamp down on his own fear and ask Clint if he was sure. Clint didn’t even acknowledge Phil’s question, though, and suddenly Ingvar had a small orb held high above his head. The whole team stepped closer, and the light burst forth and enveloped Clint for only a few breaths, and then the light faded around a grown Clint, who crumpled to the ground in a messy heap.

Phil’s heart leapt to his throat and a cry escaped his lips. He practically fell to Clint’s side and pressed his fingers to Clint’s throat. He felt relief flood his body as he found the pulse, strong and steady. Natasha was there by his side, and they rolled Clint to his back and Phil picked up his hand and gripped it like a lifeline. It was cool to the touch, but there was sweat on Clint’s forehead and Phil could feel a slight tremble in his fingers.

As Phil kept his fingers wrapped in Clint’s, Tony rushed Ingvar with a growled, ‘you motherfucker,’ and landed a solid punch across the alien’s jaw, dropping him to the floor. Nobody moved as Tony drove a kick to his ribs, but when Ingvar cried out and curled in on himself, Steve stepped forward and pulled Tony away. Tony’s face was flushed in anger and he thrust a finger down at Ingvar. “Get the fuck out of my house and back where you came from before I let Bruce let the Hulk loose on you.”

Phil glanced over and drew a sharp breath when he saw the green dancing in Bruce’s eyes and the forceful scowl on his face. “Stark,” he said, letting go of Clint’s hand and standing up. “Stand down.” He knew what Tony felt. He felt it, too, rage burning in his chest at the audacity of what this man had done to Clint. But nothing good would come of this. Coulson’s calm ways were what they all needed right now, so he shoved his own anger down and stepped over to Tony, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking over at Bruce. “Thor will get him out of here and SHIELD will work with Asgard to move forward on dealing with Earth and our people in a humane way.”

“I was trying to help him!” Ingvar thundered, standing and stepping toward Phil, but Thor moved quickly, gripping Ingvar tightly around the shoulders, enveloping him in a steely grasp.

“But you didn’t ask,” Thor shouted back, “And these Midgardians are not to be toyed with like children! You took our friend and fellow warrior as we knew him and would have kept him from his life forever, without consent. These things must not be allowed to happen. You _will_ suffer for your arrogance and presumptions. My father and I will make sure of it, and we will make sure the others know that this arrogance toward Midgard is a grave mistake.”

The room fell silent for a moment, but then Clint gasped and, as Phil saw Natasha slip a knife she’d pulled in the shuffle back into her boot, he sat up and looked around shakily.  Phil knelt down next to him and put a hand on the small of Clint’s back. “Hey there. You okay?”

Clint looked at him, taking a deep and shuddery breath.  He nodded. “Yeah,” he answered, his voice gravelly. “I think so.” Natasha pulled him to his feet and Clint set his eyes on Ingvar, who suddenly looked smaller as he stood hunched next to Thor and wilted under Clint’s hard gaze.

“Get the hell out of here,” Clint snarled, “And never come back, unless you want me to let my friends do what they really want to do right now.”

Thor gave Clint a sturdy nod, and then pulled Ingvar to the elevator. “I will see him to Asgard and then return to check on you, my friend. I am glad you are back to yourself.”

Phil watched as Thor left and the others crowded around Clint, Steve putting a hand on his shoulder and Bruce gripping his arm for a moment. Tony crossed his arms in front of him and said, “You feel okay, Barton?”

Clint rolled his shoulders and nodded. “Yeah. Tired, but I’m okay. Thanks, guys, for looking out for me.”

Tony shook his head exasperatedly and chuckled. “You were one punk kid, that’s for damned sure.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Bruce asked, gently gripping Clint’s elbow. Phil moved to his other side and slid his hand into Clint’s, twining their fingers together, savoring the feel of Clint’s calloused, weathered skin.

Clint ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair, which was one of Phil’s favorite things to watch. It was a nervous tell, but the brief vulnerability it showed always made Phil’s chest tingle with protective adoration.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I remember it all.” He looked at the floor and then back up at Bruce before sharing a glance with everyone else, too. “I was pretty scared, so thanks.”

Phil rubbed his back again and felt a small shudder run under his fingers. “You should rest,” he said quietly.

Clint looked over at him and then at Natasha as if he could read their minds. “Yeah,” he answered. “I’m pretty tired.”

Steve asked, “Breakfast tomorrow?” The unspoken ‘we need to be with you’ was loud and clear.

Clint nodded. “Sure. That’s a good idea. Thanks again, guys.”

Clint, Phil, and Natasha headed for the elevator as Tony muttered to Steve, “You should have let me kick him some more.”

The elevator doors closed and Clint sagged into Phil’s side, laying his head on his shoulder with a groan. “Can I just sleep for, like, four days?” Phil just pressed closer and relished the feel of Clint’s body against his.

Natasha ruffled Clint’s hair with a smile. “I think you both should. And then we’ll work on your technique for losing a tail to make sure that horrid job you did as a teenager hasn’t lingered.”

Phil felt Clint sigh into his shoulder. “I sucked as a teenager.”

Phil heard the self-deprecation that had oozed from teen-Clint’s pores and squeezed Clint tighter. “You were pretty remarkable, I thought.”

Natasha nodded. “You handled it, Clint.”

“I freaked out a few times and nearly ran off and got myself killed. Not sure that counts as ‘handling’, Tasha.”

“We were looking out for you,” she answered. “Same as always.”

Clint nudged her in the ribs as the door to their floor opened. They stepped out but Natasha stayed put. “I’ll see you guys at breakfast tomorrow,” she said as the doors closed, but Clint shrugged away from Phil and stuck his foot in the door to keep it open. He leaned in and pulled Natasha into a hug, murmuring into her ear.

Phil stepped back to give them the pretense of privacy, watching Clint’s sandy blond hair rest against her fiery red. Natasha closed her eyes briefly at whatever Clint told her, and then she leaned back and kissed his cheek. “Go, rest,” she urged, and Clint nodded, stepping back to Phil as the doors closed.

They headed into Phil’s apartment that was now their apartment and Clint threw himself down on the couch with a groan. “Soooo tired,” he said, throwing his arm over his face. Phil knew he would have headed straight to the bedroom if he intended to sleep, though, so Phil went to the kitchen and pulled some mugs out of the cupboard and set to making them both some hot chocolate. Pouring the hot milk into Clint’s “See Rock City” mug and adding chocolate and marshmallows carefully, he savored the familiar motions as they settled his own still-rattled core. He carried the mugs out a minute later and Clint sat up and scooted, making room for Phil to sit. They each held their mug and sipped, letting the comfortable silence stretch a bit.

“You chose to come back,” Phil finally said, figuring it would give Clint an opening if he needed it.

Clint sighed and laid his head on Phil’s shoulder. “It wasn’t really a choice, Phil.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is my life. This is how it went.”

Phil felt a shiver run down his spine and he turned to look at Clint, who was still leaning on him. “You could have changed it,” he whispered, wondering if he should just leave well enough alone.

Clint straightened up and took Phil’s hand in his. “This is my life,” he repeated, meeting Phil’s gaze steadily, his green-blue eyes shining bright and a smile tugging at his lips. “This is how it went and I’m lucky. Taking that asshole’s offer would have been like winning the biggest lottery ever and then gambling all of it on a pot of the same size. Stupid. _This_ is how it went. There wasn’t a choice to be made.”

He leaned over and kissed Phil, long and slow, and Phil savored the chocolate on his lips and the certainty on his tongue. He let it seep into his own body and was grateful.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to those awesome fans at tumblr who said, "Post it anyway!" - the rest will be less tell and more show, promise. Thanks also to the awesome folks at ClintCoulson Feelschat, who gave me some good suggestions along the way!


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